Job (The Book of )

"But now they make sport of me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone?

Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry and desolate ground;

they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes, and to warm themselves the roots of the broom.

They are driven out from among men; they shout after them as after a thief.

In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together.

A senseless, a disreputable brood, they have been whipped out of the land.

"And now I have become their song, I am a byword to them.

They abhor me, they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.

Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

On my right hand the rabble rise, they drive me forth, they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

They break up my path, they promote my calamity; no one restrains them.

As through a wide breach they come; amid the crash they roll on.

Terrors are turned upon me; my honor is pursued as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.

"And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me.

The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

With violence it seizes my garment; it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.

God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

I cry to thee and thou dost not answer me; I stand, and thou dost not heed me.

Thou hast turned cruel to me; with the might of thy hand thou dost persecute me.

Thou liftest me up on the wind, thou makest me ride on it, and thou tossest me about in the roar of the storm.

"Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, and in his disaster cry for help?

Did not I weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the poor?

But when I looked for good, evil came; and when I waited for light, darkness came.

My heart is in turmoil, and is never still; days of affliction come to meet me.

I go about blackened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.

I am a brother of jackals, and a companion of ostriches.

My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.

My lyre is turned to mourning, and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.