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 affliction grip me.

17 Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.

18 With great force He grasps my garment;[fn] 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[fn] 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 against 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 of jackals,[fn] a companion of ostriches.[fn]

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.[’’]