Job 30:1–31 (NIV84)

¹ “But now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs. ² Of what use was the strength of their hands to me, since their vigor had gone from them? ³ Haggard from want and hunger, they roamed the parched land in desolate wastelands at night. ⁴ In the brush they gathered salt herbs, and their food was the root of the broom tree. ⁵ They were banished from their fellow men, shouted at as if they were thieves. ⁶ They were forced to live in the dry stream beds, among the rocks and in holes in the ground. ⁷ They brayed among the bushes and huddled in the undergrowth. ⁸ A base and nameless brood, they were driven out of the land. ⁹ “And now their sons mock me in song; I have become a byword among them. ¹⁰ They detest me and keep their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face. ¹¹ Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they throw off restraint in my presence. ¹² On my right the tribe attacks; they lay snares for my feet, they build their siege ramps against me. ¹³ They break up my road; they succeed in destroying me— without anyone’s helping them. ¹⁴ They advance as through a gaping breach; amid the ruins they come rolling in. ¹⁵ Terrors overwhelm me; my dignity is driven away as by the wind, my safety vanishes like a cloud. ¹⁶ “And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me. ¹⁷ Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest. ¹⁸ In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment. ¹⁹ He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes. ²⁰ “I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. ²¹ You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. ²² You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm. ²³ I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living. ²⁴ “Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress. ²⁵ Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor? ²⁶ Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness. ²⁷ The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering 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, a companion of owls. ³⁰My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever. ³¹ My harp is tuned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of wailing.

John 5:1–15 (NIV84)

¹ Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” ⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” ¹¹ But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” ¹² So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” ¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. ¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.