30 But now those younger than I mock me,
    whose fathers I refused to put beside my sheepdogs.
² Their strength, what’s it to me,
    their energy having perished?
³ Stiff from want and hunger,
    those who gnaw dry ground,
    yesterday’s desolate waste,
⁴     who pluck off the leaves on a bush,
    the root of the broom—
    a shrub is their food.
⁵ People banish them from society,
        shout at them as if to a thief;
⁶     so they live in scary ravines,
        holes in the ground and rocks.
⁷ Among shrubs, they make sounds like donkeys;
    they are huddled together under a bush,
⁸     children of fools and the nameless,
        whipped out of the land.

⁹ And now I’m their song;
    I’m their cliché!
¹⁰ They detest me, keep their distance,
    don’t withhold spit from my face.
¹¹ Because he loosened my bowstring and afflicted me,
    they throw off restraint in my presence.
¹² On the right, upstarts^[a] rise and target my feet,
    build their siege ramps against me,
¹³     destroy my road, profit from my fall,
        with no help.
¹⁴ They advance as if through a destroyed wall;^[b]
    they roll along beneath the ruin.
¹⁵ Terrors crash upon me;
    they sweep away my honor like wind;
        my safety disappears like a cloud.