30:1  "But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have refused to put with the dogs of my flock.

30:2  Yea, what profit to me was the strength of their hands, for their vigor had perished from them?

30:3  They are dried up with want and famine; who fled into the wilderness, which was before desolate and waste,

30:4  Those plucking mallows by the bushes, and broom roots for their food.

30:5  They are driven forth from the midst of men; they shouted after them as a thief.

30:6  They dwell in the clefts of the valleys, in caves of the earth and in rocks.

30:7  They bray among the bushes; they huddle together under the nettles;

30:8   They were children of fools, yea, children of base men; they were scourged out of the land.

30:9  And now I am their song; yea, I am their byword.

30:10  They despise me, and they flee far from me; they do not spare spitting in my face.

30:11  Because He has loosed my cord and afflicted me, they have also cast off restraint before me.

30:12  On my right an insolent brood rises; they push away my feet and cast up against me the ways of their destruction.

30:13  They have broken down my path, they gain by my trouble without anyone helping them.

30:14  As through a wide breach they come; in the midst of ruin they roll themselves upon me.

30:15  Terrors have turned upon me; they pursue my soul like the wind; and my good passes away like a cloud.

30:16  And now my soul is poured out within me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

30:17  My bones are pierced with pain in the night; and my gnawing pains give me no rest.

30:18  By the great force of my disease my garment is disfigured; it binds me about like the collar of my coat.

30:19  He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

30:20  I cried to You, and You did not answer me; I stood up, and You did not consider me.

30:21  You have become cruel to me; with Your mighty hand You oppose me.

30:22  You lift me up to the wind; You cause me to ride upon it; and You dissolve my substance.

30:23  For I know that You will bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

30:24  Surely one will stretch out his hand from a ruinous heap, or in his calamity cry out for help.

30:25  Did I not weep for him who was in trouble; and was not my soul grieved for the poor?

30:26  When I looked for good, then evil came; and when I waited for light, then darkness came.

30:27  My bowels boiled, and did not rest; the days of trouble confront me.

30:28  I go in mourning without any comfort; I stood up and I cried out in the assembly.

30:29  I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to the ostrich.

30:30  My skin is black and falling from me, and my bones are burning with heat.

30:31  And my lyre has turned to mourning, and my pipe to the sound of weeping."