30 But now younger men in time scorn me, whose fathers I deigned^[a] not to set with the dogs of my flock. (But now men younger than me scorn me, men whose fathers I would not deign to put with the dogs of my flock.)

² Of which men the strength of their hands was for nought to me, and they were guessed unworthy to that life (yea, they were too weak to be of any use to me).

³ They were barren for neediness and hunger; they gnawed in (the) wilderness, and were (made) pale for poverty and wretchedness;

⁴ and they ate herbs, and the rinds of trees; and the root of junipers was their meat. (and they ate grass, and the bark of trees; and juniper roots were their food.)

⁵ The which men ravished these things from great valleys; and when(ever) they had found any of all these things, they ran with (a) cry to them. (They were driven out from among men, who cried after them, as if they were thieves.)

⁶ They dwelled in deserts of strands, and in caves of [the] earth, either on gravel. (They lived in dried up riverbeds, and in caves of the earth, and on rocks.)

⁷ Which were glad among such things (And they were happy there), and they areckoned (it) as delights to be under bushes.

⁸ These were the sons of fools, and of unnoble men, and utterly appearing not on [the] earth. (They were the sons of fools, and of unnoble men, and were soon driven out of the land.)

⁹ But now I am turned into the song of them, and I am made a proverb to them.

¹⁰ They hold me abominable, and they flee far from me, and dread not to spit on my face (and do not fear to spit in my face).

¹¹ For God hath opened his arrow case, and he hath tormented me, and he hath put a bridle into my mouth.

¹² At the right side of the east my wretchednesses have risen up at once; they turned upside-down my feet, and they oppressed me with their paths as with floods. (On my right side they attack me in a mob; they set my feet running, and they raise against me the ways of their destruction.)

¹³ They destroyed my ways; they setted treason to me, and they had the mastery; and there was none that helped me (and there was no one who helped me).

¹⁴ They felled in upon me as by a broken wall, and by (a) gate opened (and by an opened gate), and (they) were stretched forth to my wretchednesses.

¹⁵ I am driven into nought; he took away my desire as [the] wind, and mine help passed away as a cloud. (I am driven down into nothing; these torments have swept away my hope like the wind, and my help hath passed away like a cloud.)