Capítulo 30

1 - 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11 - 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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