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Job’s Honor Turned into Contempt

¹ But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to entrust with my sheep dogs.² What use to me was the strength of their hands, since their vigor had left them?³ Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night.⁴ They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food^(a).⁵ They were banished from among men, shouted down like thieves,⁶ so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.⁷ They cried out among the shrubs and huddled beneath the nettles.⁸ A senseless and nameless brood, they were driven off the land.⁹ And now they mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.¹⁰ They abhor me and keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.¹¹ Because God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint^(a) in my presence.¹² The rabble arises at my right; they lay snares for my feet and build siege ramps against me.¹³ They tear up my path; they profit from my destruction, with no one to restrain them.¹⁴ They advance as through a wide breach; through the ruins they keep rolling in.

Job’s Prosperity Becomes Calamity

¹⁵ Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.¹⁶ And now my soul is poured out within me; days of suffering grip me.¹⁷ Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.¹⁸ With great force He grasps my garment; He seizes me by the collar of my tunic.¹⁹ He throws me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.²⁰ I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer; when I stand up, You merely look at me.²¹ You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand.²² You snatch me up into the wind and drive me before it; You toss me about^(a) in the storm.²³ Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.²⁴ Yet no one stretches out his hand to a ruined man when he cries for help in his distress.²⁵ Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has my soul not grieved for the needy?²⁶ But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell.²⁷ I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me.²⁸ I go about blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.²⁹ I have become a brother to jackals, and a companion of ostriches.³⁰ My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.³¹ My harp is tuned to mourning and my flute to the sound of weeping.