📖 Job 30
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Job’s Present Misery“But now they mock me, those who are younger than I, whose fathers I disdained too much to put with my sheep dogs.
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Moreover, the strength of their hands– what use was it to me? Men whose strength had perished;
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gaunt with want and hunger, they would roam the parched land, by night a desolate waste.
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By the brush they would gather herbs from the salt marshes, and the root of the broom tree was their food.
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They were banished from the community– people shouted at them like they would shout at thieves–
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so that they had to live in the dry stream beds, in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.
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They brayed like animals among the bushes and were huddled together under the nettles.
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Sons of senseless and nameless people, they were driven out of the land with whips.
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Job’s Indignities“And now I have become their taunt song; I have become a byword among them.
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They detest me and maintain their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
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Because God has untied my tent cord and afflicted me, people throw off all restraint in my presence.
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On my right the young rabble rise up; they drive me from place to place, and build up siege ramps against me.
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They destroy my path; they succeed in destroying me without anyone assisting them.
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They come in as through a wide breach; amid the crash they come rolling in.
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Terrors are turned loose on me; they drive away my honor like the wind, and like a cloud my deliverance has passed away.
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Job’s Despondency“And now my soul pours itself out within me; days of suffering take hold of me.
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Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never cease.
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With great power God grasps my clothing; he binds me like the collar of my tunic.
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He has flung me into the mud, and I have come to resemble dust and ashes.
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I cry out to you, but you do not answer me; I stand up, and you only look at me.
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You have become cruel to me; with the strength of your hand you attack me.
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You pick me up on the wind and make me ride on it; you toss me about in the storm.
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I know that you are bringing me to death, to the meeting place for all the living.
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The Contrast With the Past“Surely one does not stretch out his hand against a broken man when he cries for help in his distress.
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Have I not wept for the unfortunate? Was not my soul grieved for the poor?
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But when I hoped for good, trouble came; when I expected light, then darkness came.
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My heart is in turmoil unceasingly; the days of my affliction confront me.
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I go about blackened, but not by the sun; in the assembly I stand up and cry for help.
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I have become a brother to jackals and a companion of ostriches.
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My skin has turned dark on me; my body is hot with fever.
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My harp is used for mourning and my flute for the sound of weeping.