30:1
And now I am the laughing-stock of people who are younger than I am and whose parents I would have disdained to put with the dogs guarding my flock.
30:2
And what use to me was the strength of their hands? - enfeebled as they were,
30:3
worn out by want and hunger, for they used to gnaw the roots of the thirsty ground -- that place of gloom, ruin and desolation-
30:4
they used to pick saltwort among the scrub, making their meals off roots of broom.
30:5
Outlawed from human company, which raised hue and cry against them, as against thieves,
30:6
they made their homes in the sides of ravines, in holes in the earth or in clefts of rock.
30:7
You could hear them braying from the bushes as they huddled together in the thistles.
30:8
Children of scoundrels, worse, nameless people, the very outcasts of society!
30:9
And these are the ones who now make up songs about me and use me as a byword!
30:10
Filled with disgust, they keep their distance, on seeing me, they spit without restraint.
30:11
And since God has loosened my bow-string and afflicted me, they too throw off the bridle in my presence.
30:12
Their brats surge forward on my right, to see when I am having a little peace, and advance on me with threatening strides.
30:13
They cut off all means of escape seizing the chance to destroy me, and no one stops them.
30:14
They move in, as if through a wide breach, and I go tumbling beneath the rubble.
30:15
Terror rounds on me, my confidence is dispersed as though by the wind, my hope of safety vanishes like a cloud.
30:16
And now the life in me trickles away, days of grief have gripped me.
30:17
At night-time sickness saps my bones I am gnawed by wounds that never sleep.
30:18
Violently, he has caught me by my clothes, has gripped me by the collar of my coat.
30:19
He has thrown me into the mud; I am no more than dust and ashes.
30:20
I cry to you, and you give me no answer; I stand before you, but you take no notice.
30:21
You have grown cruel to me, and your strong hand torments me unmercifully.
30:22
You carry me away astride the wind and blow me to pieces in a tempest.
30:23
Yes, I know that you are taking me towards death, to the common meeting-place of all the living.
30:24
Yet have I ever laid a hand on the poor when they cried out for justice in calamity?
30:25
Have I not wept for those whose life is hard, felt pity for the penniless?
30:26
I hoped for happiness, but sorrow came; I looked for light, but there was darkness.
30:27
My stomach seethes, is never still, days of suffering have struck me.
30:28
Sombre I go, yet no one comforts me, and if I rise in the council, I rise to weep.
30:29
I have become brother to the jackal and companion to the ostrich.
30:30
My skin has turned black on me, my bones are burnt with fever.
30:31
My harp is tuned to dirges, my pipe to the voice of mourners.
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