Job 30 - Easy To Read Version

¹ But now, even the men who are younger than I am are making fun of me.\par And their fathers were so worthless\par that I wouldn’t put them with the dogs\par guarding my sheep.\par

² The fathers of those young men\par are too weak to help me.\par They are old and tired—their muscles\par are not hard and strong any more.\par

³ They are like dead men—\par They are starving with nothing to eat.\par So they eat the dry dust of the desert.\par

⁴ They pull up salt plants in the desert.\par They eat the roots from the broom tree.\par

⁵ They are forced away from other people.\par People shout at them like they are thieves.\par

⁶ They must live in the dry river beds,\par hillside caves and holes in the ground.\par

⁷ They howl in the bushes,\par and huddle together under thorn bushes.\par

⁸ They are a group of worthless people\par with no names who were forced\par to leave their country!\par

⁹ “Now those men’s sons\par sing songs about me to make fun of me.\par My name has become a bad word to them.\par

¹⁰ Those young men hate me,\par they stand away from me,\par they think they are better than me.\par They even spit in my face!\par

¹¹ God has taken the string\par from my bow and made me weak.\par Those young men don’t stop themselves\par but turn against me with all their anger.\par

¹² They attack me at my right side.\par They knock my feet out from under me.\par \{I feel like a city being attacked:\}\par They build dirt ramps against my walls\par to attack and destroy me.\par

¹³ They guard the road so I can’t escape.\par They succeed in destroying me.\par They don’t need anyone to help them.\par

¹⁴ They break a hole in the wall.\par They come rushing through it,\par and the crashing rocks fall on me.\par

¹⁵ I am shaking with fear.\par Those young men chase away my honor\par like the wind blows things away.\par My safety disappears like a cloud.\par

¹⁶ “Now my life is almost gone,\par and I will soon die.\par Days of suffering have grabbed me.\par

¹⁷ All my bones ache at night.\par Pain never stops chewing on me.\par

¹⁸ God grabbed the collar of my coat\par and twisted my clothes out of shape.\par

¹⁹ God threw me into the mud,\par and I become like dirt and ashes.\par

²⁰ “God, I cry out to you for help,\par but you don’t answer.\par I stand up and pray,\par but you don’t pay attention to me.\par

²¹ God, you are mean to me.\par You use your power to hurt me.\par

²² God, you let the strong wind blow me away.\par You throw me around in the storm.\par

²³ I know you will lead me to my death.\par Every living person must die.\par

²⁴ “But, surely no one will hurt a person\par that is already ruined and crying for help.\par

²⁵ God, you know that I have cried for people in trouble.\par You know that my heart was very sad for poor people.\par

²⁶ But when I looked for good things.\par bad things came instead.\par When I looked for light, darkness came.\par

²⁷ I am torn up inside.\par The suffering never stops.\par And the suffering has just started.\par

²⁸ I am always sad and depressed,\par without relief.\par I stand up in the assembly\par and yell for help.\par

²⁹ I am all alone like the wild dogs\par and ostriches \{in the desert\}.\par

³⁰ My skin is burnt and peeling away.\par My body is hot with fever.\par

³¹ My harp is tuned to play sad songs.\par