30:1 But now those who are younger than I make sport of me; those whose fathers I would not have put with the dogs of my flocks.

30:2 Of what use is the strength of their hands to me? all force is gone from them.

30:3 They are wasted for need of food, biting the dry earth; their only hope of life is in the waste land.

30:4 They are pulling off the salt leaves from the brushwood, and making a meal of roots.

30:5 They are sent out from among their townsmen, men are crying after them as thieves

30:6 They have to get a resting-place in the hollows of the valleys, in holes of the earth and rocks.

30:7 They make noises like asses among the brushwood; they get together under the thorns.

30:8 They are sons of shame, and of men without a name, who have been forced out of the land.

30:9 And now I have become their song, and I am a word of shame to them.

30:10 I am disgusting to them; they keep away from me, and put marks of shame on me.

30:11 For he has made loose the cord of my bow, and put me to shame; he has sent down my flag to the earth before me.

30:12 The lines of his men of war put themselves in order, and make high their ways of destruction against me:

30:13 They have made waste my roads, with a view to my destruction; his bowmen come round about me;

30:14 As through a wide broken place in the wall they come on, I am overturned by the shock of their attack.

30:15 Fears have come on me; my hope is gone like the wind, and my well-being like a cloud.

30:16 But now my soul is turned to water in me, days of trouble overtake me:

30:17 The flesh is gone from my bones, and they give me no rest; there is no end to my pains.

30:18 With great force he takes a grip of my clothing, pulling me by the neck of my coat.

30:19 Truly God has made me low, even to the earth, and I have become like dust.

30:20 You give no answer to my cry, and take no note of my prayer.

30:21 You have become cruel to me; the strength of your hand is hard on me.

30:22 Lifting me up, you make me go on the wings of the wind; I am broken up by the storm.

30:23 For I am certain that you will send me back to death, and to the meeting-place ordered for all living.

30:24 Has not my hand been stretched out in help to the poor? have I not been a saviour to him in his trouble?

30:25 Have I not been weeping for the crushed? and was not my soul sad for him who was in need?

30:26 For I was looking for good, and evil came; I was waiting for light, and it became dark.

30:27 My feelings are strongly moved, and give me no rest; days of trouble have overtaken me.

30:28 I go about in dark clothing, uncomforted; I get up in the public place, crying out for help.

30:29 I have become a brother to the jackals, and go about in the company of ostriches.

30:30 My skin is black and dropping off me; and my bones are burning with the heat of my disease.