1 Job’s Present State Is Humiliating “But now those younger than I mockandlaugh at me,Whose fathers I refused to put with the sheepdogs of my flock.2 Indeed, how could the strength of their hands profit me?Vigor had perished from them.3 They are gaunt with want and famine;They gnaw the dryandbarren ground by night in [the gloom of] waste and desolation.4 They pluck [and eat]I.e. a plant of the salt marshes.saltwort (mallows) among the bushes,And their food is the root of the broom shrub.5 They are driven from the community;They shout after them as after a thief.6 They must dwell on the slopes ofI.e. gullies or valleys made by torrents of water.wadisAnd inholes in the ground and in rocks.7 Among the bushes they cry out [like wild animals];Beneath the prickly scrub they gatherandhuddle together.8 They are thesons of [worthless and nameless] fools,They have been driven out of the land.9 “And now I have become [the subject of] their taunting;Yes, I am aI.e. the object of cruel jokes.bywordanda laughingstock to them.10 They hate me, they stand aloof from me,And do not refrain from spitting in my face.11 For God has loosed His bowstring [attacking me] and [He has] afflictedandhumbled me;They have cast off the bridle [of restraint] before me.12 On my right the [rabble] brood rises;They push my feet away, and they build up their ways of destruction against me [like an advancing army].13 They break upandclutter my path [upsetting my plans],They profit from my destruction;No one restrains them.14 Asthrougha wide breach they come,Amid the crash [of falling walls] they roll on [over me].15 Terrors are turned upon me;They chase away my honorandreputation like the wind,And my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.16 “And now my soul is poured out within me;The days of affliction have seized me.17 My bones are pierced [with aching] in the night season,Andthe painsthat gnaw me take no rest.18 By the great force [of my disease] my garment (skin) is disfiguredandblemished;It binds about me [choking me] like the collar of my coat.19 God has cast me into the mire [a swampland of crisis],And I have become [worthless] like dust and ashes.20 I cry to You for help, [Lord,] but You do not answer me;I stand up, but You [only] gaze [indifferently] at me.21 You have become harshandcruel to me;With the might of Your hand You [keep me alive only to] persecute me.22 You lift me up on the wind and cause me to ride [upon it];And You toss me about in the tempestanddissolve me in the storm.23 For I know that You will bring me to deathAnd to the house of meeting [appointed] for all the living.24 “However, does not one falling in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand?Or in his disaster [will he not] therefore cry out for help?25 Did I not weep for one whose life was hardandfilled with trouble?Was not my heart grieved for the needy?26 When I expected good, then came evil [to me];And when I waited for light, then came darkness.27 I am seething withinandmy heart is troubled and cannot rest;Days of affliction come to meet me.28 I go about mourning without comfort [my skin blackened by disease, not by the heat of the sun];I stand up in the assemblyandcry out for help.29 I am a brother to [howling] jackals,And a companion to ostriches [which scream dismally].30 My skin falls from me in blackened flakes,And my bones are burned with fever.31 Therefore my lyre (harp) isusedfor [the sound of] mourning,And my flute for the [sound of the] voices of those who weep.