Chapter 30

  But now [they that are] younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.  

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  Yea, whereto [might] the strength of their hands [profit] me, in whom old age was perished?  

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  For want and famine [they were] solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.  

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  Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots [for] their meat.  

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  They were driven forth from among [men], (they cried after them as [after] a thief;)  

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  To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, [in] caves of the earth, and [in] the rocks.  

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  Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.  

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  [They were] children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.  

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  And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.  

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  They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.  

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  Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me.  

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  Upon [my] right [hand] rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.  

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  They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.  

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  They came [upon me] as a wide breaking in [of waters]: in the desolation they rolled themselves [upon me].  

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  Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud.  

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  And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.  

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  My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.  

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  By the great force [of my disease] is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.  

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  He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes.  

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  I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me [not].  

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  Thou art become cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me.  

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  Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride [upon it], and dissolvest my substance.  

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  For I know [that] thou wilt bring me [to] death, and [to] the house appointed for all living.  

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  Howbeit he will not stretch out [his] hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction.  

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  Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was [not] my soul grieved for the poor?  

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  When I looked for good, then evil came [unto me]: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.  

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  My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me.  

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  I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, [and] I cried in the congregation.  

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  I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.  

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  My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.  

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  My harp also is [turned] to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.  

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