30 “But now they make sport of me,
men who are younger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained
    to set with the dogs of my flock.
² What could I gain from the strength of their hands,
    men whose vigor is gone?
³ Through want and hard hunger
    they gnaw the dry and desolate ground;^[a]
4 they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes,
    and to warm themselves the roots of the broom.
⁵ They are driven out from among men;
    they shout after them as after a thief.
⁶ In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell,
    in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
⁷ Among the bushes they bray;
    under the nettles they huddle together.
⁸ A senseless, a disreputable brood,
    they have been whipped out of the land.

⁹ “And now I have become their song,
    I am a byword to them.
¹⁰ They abhor me, they keep aloof from me;
    they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.
¹¹ Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,
    they have cast off restraint in my presence.
¹² On my right hand the rabble rise,
    they drive me^[b] forth,
    they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
¹³ They break up my path,
    they promote my calamity;
    no one restrains^[c] them.
¹⁴ As through^[d] a wide breach they come;
    amid the crash they roll on.
¹⁵ Terrors are turned upon me;
    my honor is pursued as by the wind,
    and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.

¹⁶ “And now my soul is poured out within me;
    days of affliction have taken hold of me.
¹⁷ The night racks my bones,
    and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.
¹⁸ With violence it seizes my garment;^[e]
    it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
¹⁹ God has cast me into the mire,
    and I have become like dust and ashes.
²⁰ I cry to thee and thou dost not answer me;
    I stand, and thou dost not^[f] heed me.
²¹ Thou hast turned cruel to me;
    with the might of thy hand thou dost persecute me.
²² Thou liftest me up on the wind, thou makest me ride on it,
    and thou tossest me about in the roar of the storm.
²³ Yea, I know that thou wilt bring me to death,
    and to the house appointed for all living.

²⁴ “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand,
    and in his disaster cry for help?^[g]
25 Did not I weep for him whose day was hard?
    Was not my soul grieved for the poor?
²⁶ But when I looked for good, evil came;
    and when I waited for light, darkness came.
²⁷ My heart is in turmoil, and is never still;
    days of affliction come to meet me.
²⁸ I go about blackened, but not by the sun;
    I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.
²⁹ I am a brother of jackals,
    and a companion of ostriches.
³⁰ My skin turns black and falls from me,
    and my bones burn with heat.
³¹ My lyre is turned to mourning,
    and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.