Job 30

Job: Now the Sons of Those I Disdained Mock Me

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Now the Least Laugh at Me

30:1“But now they laughed at me;
now the least take turns admonishing me,
whose fathers I disdained,
whom I did not consider worthy of my grazing flocks’ dogs.

30:2And indeed, what use to me is their hands’ strength?
Their completion perished,

30:3barren amid need and famine—
those who fled a waterless place yesterday,
constraint and misery,

30:4those who broke off salt plants beside what resounded,
whose food was salt plants,
dishonored and despised, lacking every good thing,
who even chewed tree roots because of great hunger.

30:5Thieves rose against me,

30:6whose houses were holes in rocks.

30:7Among resounding things they will cry out—
those who lived beneath wild brushwood,

30:8sons of foolish and dishonored people,
whose name and renown were extinguished from the earth.

30:9But now I am their lyre,
and they have me as their repeated tale.

30:10They abhorred me and stood far away,
and they did not spare spit from my face.

30:11For He opened His quiver and mistreated me,
and they released the bridle of my face.

30:12At the right hand of a shoot they rose;
they stretched out their foot
and made roads against me, the paths of their destruction.

30:13My paths were worn away,
for He stripped off my robe.

30:14He struck me with His missiles;
He has dealt with me as He wishes;
I am befouled with pains.

30:15My pains return;
my hope went away like wind,
and my salvation like a cloud.

30:16And now my soul will be poured out upon me;
days of pains hold me.

30:17By night my bones have been burned together,
and my sinews have come apart.

30:18With great strength He seized my robe;
He encircled me like the collar of my tunic.

30:19You regard me as clay;
my portion is in earth and ashes.

30:20I have cried to You, and You do not hear me;
they stood and observed me.

30:21You came upon me without mercy;
with a mighty hand You scourged me.

30:22You placed me amid pains
and cast me away from salvation.

30:23For I know that death will wear me away;
for earth is the house of every mortal.

30:24If only I could master myself,
or at least ask another, and he would do this for me.

30:25But I wept over every powerless person
and groaned when I saw a man in constraints.

30:26While I held on for good things,
look, days of evils met me instead.

30:27My belly boiled over and will not be silent;
days of poverty overtook me.

30:28I have gone about groaning without a muzzle;
I have stood in an assembly, crying out.

30:29I have become a brother to sirens
and a companion to ostriches.

30:30My skin has darkened greatly,
and my bones are scorched from heat.

30:31My lyre became an expression of my suffering,
and my song became weeping for me.”

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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.