30:1 “But now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs.
30:2 Of what use was the strength of their hands to me, since their vigor had gone from them?
30:3 Haggard from want and hunger, they roamed* the parched land in desolate wastelands at night. / *Or gnawed
30:4 In the brush they gathered salt herbs, and their food* was the root of the broom bush. / *Or fuel
30:5 They were banished from human society, shouted at as if they were thieves.
30:6 They were forced to live in the dry stream beds, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.
30:7 They brayed among the bushes and huddled in the undergrowth.
30:8 A base and nameless brood, they were driven out of the land.
30:9 “And now those young men mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.
30:10 They detest me and keep their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
30:11 Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they throw off restraint in my presence.
30:12 On my right the tribe* attacks; they lay snares for my feet, they build their siege ramps against me. / *The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
30:13 They break up my road; they succeed in destroying me. ‘No one can help him,’ they say.
30:14 They advance as through a gaping breach; amid the ruins they come rolling in.
30:15 Terrors overwhelm me; my dignity is driven away as by the wind, my safety vanishes like a cloud.
30:16 “And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me.
30:17 Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest.
30:18 In his great power God becomes like clothing to me*; he binds me like the neck of my garment. / *Hebrew; Septuagint power he grasps my clothing
30:19 He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes.
30:20 “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me.
30:21 You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me.
30:22 You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm.
30:23 I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.
30:24 “Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress.
30:25 Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor?
30:26 Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness.
30:27 The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering confront me.
30:28 I go about blackened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
30:29 I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of owls.
30:30 My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever.
30:31 My lyre is tuned to mourning, and my pipe to the sound of wailing.