Job 30:1-31 VOICE

[1] Job: But now they mock me, these young men whose fathers I hold in such contempt. I wouldn't trust them with my herds as I do my dogs. [2] What good does their strength do me? Their potency has wilted. [3] Gaunt from starvation, haggard from hunger that drives them to gnaw the ground in the night, a ground all wasted and hollowed-out, [4] They are left with the desperate foods of the famished- plucking mallow from the bushes by the salt marshes, and making the ashy broom tree root their staple. [5] The people from the town chase each one out of his neighborhood; they howl at all of them as if they were common thieves, [6] And push them out to live in the deep valleys of the wadis- those desert streams that come and go- So these outcasts seek shelter in the overhangs and crumbling caves that line the banks of no-man's-land. [7] Braying like donkeys from the bushes, huddled together in the prickly undergrowth are [8] Fools and sons of no-names, driven by lashes out from the bosom of the land. [9] And now they sing of me in taunt and parody, and make my name a byword among them. [10] They abhor me, keep their distance, and feel free to spit in my face. [11] Because God has unstrung His bowstring and stricken me with suffering, they are no longer restrained toward me. [12] To my right, the horde arises. They seek to knock me off my feet, piling their disastrous ways against me. [13] They lay waste to my path and benefit from my destruction, and no one is there to stop them. [14] As through a wall breached, they advance easily. Their thunderstorm of wheels rolled across my ruins. [15] Alas! A storm of terrors has turned toward me and is upon me; my dignity is blown away as by the wind; my prosperity vanishes like a wispy cloud. [16] And now my own soul is drawn out, poured over me. The days of misery have taken hold of me; I am firmly in their grasp. [17] By night, my pain is at work, boring holes in my bones; it gnaws at me and never lies down to rest. [18] With great force, God wraps around me like my clothing. He binds tightly about my neck as if He were the collar of my tunic. [19] He has pushed me off into the mud, and I am reduced from man to dust and ashes. [20] I call out to You, God, but You refuse to answer me. When I arise, You merely examine me. [21] You have changed. Now You are cruel to me; You employ Your strength to attack me. [22] You pull me up into the wind and make me ride upon it until I am fractured and dissipated in the storm. [23] I know where this ends. You will send me off to death and usher me to that meetinghouse where all the living one day go. [24] And yet does not a person trapped in ruins stretch out his hand, and in this disaster does he not cry out for help? [25] Did I not grieve for the hard days of another or weep for the pains of the poor? [26] And yet when I longed for the good, evil came; when I awaited the light, thick darkness arrived instead. [27] I am boiling on the inside, and it will not quit; yet the days of misery still come for me. [28] I drift in darkness, the sun absent; I arise in the assembly and call out for help. [29] But who will come now that I am roaming the wilderness? I am a brother to jackals, a friend of ostriches. [30] Despite my earnest cries, my skin burns until it is black and flakes off, and my bones burn with fever. [31] And so my harp is tuned to the key of mourning, and my flute is pitched to the sound of weeping.