Chapter 30

  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.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  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.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  And my music has been turned to sorrow, and the sound of my pipe into the noise of weeping.  

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