Chapter 30

Holy Job sheweth the great change of his temporal estate, from welfare into great calamity.

1. 1

   But now they of younger time scorn me, whose fathers I vouchsafed not to put with the dogs of my flock:

2. 2

   The force of whose hands was to me as nothing, & they were thought unworthy of life it-self.

3. 3

   Barren with poverty and famine, who gnawed in the wilderness, ill favoured by calamity and misery.

4. 4

   And they did eat grass, and the barks of trees, and the root of junipers was their meat.

5. 5

   Who taking these things violently out of the valleys, when they had found every thing, they ran to them with a cry.

6. 6

   They dwelt in the deserts of torrents, and in caves of the earth, or upon gravel.

7. 7

   Who rejoiced among these kind of things, and counted it delicacies to be under the briers.

8. 8

   The children of foolish and base men, and in the earth not appearing at all.

9. 9

   Now am I turned into their song, and become a proverb with them.

10. 10

    They abhor me, and fly far from me, and are not afraid to spit in my face.

11. 11

    For he hath opened his quiver, and hath afflicted me, and hath put a bridle into my mouth.

12. 12

    At the right hand of me rising, my calamities forthwith arose: they have overthrown my feet, & as with waves have oppressed with their paths.

13. 13

    They have dissipated my ways, they have lien in wait against me, and they have prevailed, and there was not that would help.

14. 14

    As when a wall is broken, and the gate opened, they have broken violently upon me, and are come tumbling down to my miseries.

15. 15

    I am brought to nothing: as a wind thou hast taken away my desire: and my prosperity hath passed away as a cloud.

16. 16

    And now my soul withereth in my self, and the days of affliction possess me.

17. 17

    In the night my bone is pierced with sorrows: and they that eat me, sleep not.

18. 18

    In the multitude of them my garment is consumed, and they have girded me about, as it were with the collar of a coat.

19. 19

    I am compared to dirt, and am resembled to embers and ashes.

20. 20

    I cry to thee, and thou hearest me not: I stand, and thou doest not respect me.

21. 21

    Thou art changed to be cruel toward me, and in the hardness of thy hand thou art against me.

22. 22

    Thou didst lift me up, and setting me as it were upon the wind thou hast mightily dashed me.

23. 23

    I know that thou wilt deliver me to death, where a house is appointed for every one that liveth.

24. 24

    But yet not to my consumption doest thou send forth thy hand: and if they shall fall, thou wilt save.

25. 25

    I wept sometime upon him that was afflicted, & my soul had compassion on the poor.

26. 26

    I expected good things, and evils are come upon me: tarried for light, and darkness brake forth.

27. 27

    My inner parts have boiled without any rest, the days of affliction have prevented me.

28. 28

    I went mourning without fury, rising up, I cried in the multitude.

29. 29

    I was the brother of dragons, and fellow of Ostriches:

30. 30

    My skin is made black upon me, and my bones are dried with heat.

31. 31

    My harp is turned into mourning, and my instrument into the voice of weepers.