Job 30:26–31

¹⁵We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!

¹⁹Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!

²⁵For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

²⁶I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

¹⁰¶ Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.

⁶The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him.

⁸He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.

¹⁷Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither hath he covered the darkness from my face.

¹²For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem.

¹¹Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.

¹⁸Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?

¹⁸He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.

¹⁸Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.

¹¹Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.

¹⁹¶ My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

²⁰Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.

⁴Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

⁶I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.

⁹I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

²For thou art the God of my strength: why dost thou cast me off? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

³He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴¶ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

⁷Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.

¹I AM the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

²He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

³Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.

⁸Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.

⁶I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.

¹⁴I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.

³And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

¹⁹Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.

²¹But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.

²²And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

¹⁴Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.

⁸Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

³For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.

⁸³For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.

⁴My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.

¹⁰Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

¹⁵The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

⁴My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me.

¹⁸¶ Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of musick brought before him: and his sleep went from him.

⁴A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

¹²And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:

⁷The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merryhearted do sigh.

⁸The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth.

⁹They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.

¹BY the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

²We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

³For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

⁴How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?