Chapter Text
30:1 “But now those younger than I laugh at me, Whose fathers I rejected even to put with the dogs of my flock.
30:2 Indeed, what good was the strength of their hands to me? Vigor had perished from them.
30:3 From want and famine they are gaunt, Who gnaw the dry ground by night in destruction and desolation,
30:4 Who pluck mallow by the bushes, And whose food is the root of the broom tree.
30:5 They are driven from the community; They shout against them as against a thief,
30:6 So that they dwell in the slopes of the valleys, In holes of the dust and of the rocks.
30:7 Among the bushes they cry out; Under the nettles they are gathered together.
30:8 Wicked fools, even those without a name, They were scourged from the land.
30:9 “And now I have become their mocking song; I have even become a taunting word to them.
30:10 They abhor me and keep a distance from me, And they do not hold back from spitting at my face.
30:11 Because He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me, They have thrust aside their bridle before me.
30:12 On the right hand their brood arises; They thrust aside my feet and build up against me their ways to disaster.
30:13 They break up my path; They profit from my destruction; They have no helper.
30:14 As through a wide breach they come, Amid the storm they roll on.
30:15 Terrors are turned against me; They pursue my nobility as the wind, And my hope for salvation has passed away like a cloud.
30:16 “And now my soul is poured out within me; Days of affliction have seized me.
30:17 At night it pierces my bones within me, And my gnawing pains take no rest.
30:18 By a great force my garment is distorted; It seizes me about as the collar of my tunic.
30:19 He has cast me into the mire, And I have become like dust and ashes.
30:20 I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You carefully consider how to be against me.
30:21 You have become cruel to me; With the might of Your hand You hunted me down.
30:22 You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride; And You melt me away in a storm.
30:23 For I know that You will bring me to death And to the house of meeting for all living.
30:24 “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, Or, in his upheaval, is there a cry for help because of them?
30:25 Have I not wept for the one whose life is hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
30:26 When I hoped for good, then evil came; When I waited for light, then thick darkness came.
30:27 I am boiling within and cannot be silent; Days of affliction confront me.
30:28 I go about darkened but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help.
30:29 I have become a brother to jackals And a companion of ostriches.
30:30 My skin turns black on me, And my bones burn with fever.
30:31 Therefore my harp is turned to mourning, And my flute to the sound of those who weep.