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And dwelt as a king in the army,

As one that comforteth the mourners.

 

30 But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,

Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

²Yea, the strength of their hands, whereto should it profit me?

Men in whom ripe age is perished.

³They are gaunt with want and famine;

They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of wasteness and desolation.

⁴They pluck salt-wort with wormwood;

And the roots of the broom are their food.

⁵They are driven forth from the midst of men;

They cry after them as after a thief.

⁶In the clefts of the valleys must they dwell,

In holes of the earth and of the rocks.

⁷Among the bushes they bray;

Under the nettles they are gathered together.

⁸They are children of churls, yea, children of ignoble men;

They were scourged out of the land.

 

⁹And now I am become their song,

Yea, I am a byword unto them.

¹⁰They abhor me, they flee far from me,

And spare not to spit in my face.

¹¹For He hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me,

And they have cast off the bridle before me.

¹²Upon my right hand rise the brood;

They entangle my feet,

And they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

¹³They break up my path,

They further my calamity,

Even men that have no helper.

¹⁴As through a wide breach they come;

In the midst of the ruin they roll themselves upon me.

¹⁵Terrors are turned upon me,

They chase mine honour as the wind;

And my welfare is passed away as a cloud.

 

¹⁶And now my soul is poured out within me;

Days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

¹⁷In the night my bones are pierced, and fall from me,

And my sinews take no rest.

¹⁸By the great force [of my disease] is my garment disfigured;

It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.

¹⁹He hath cast me into the mire,

And I am become like dust and ashes.

²⁰I cry unto Thee, and Thou dost not answer me;

I stand up, and Thou lookest at me. ²¹Thou art turned to be cruel to me;

With the might of Thy hand Thou hatest me.

²²Thou liftest me up to the wind, Thou causest me to ride upon it;

And Thou dissolvest my substance.

²³For I know that Thou wilt bring me to death,

And to the house appointed for all living.

 

²⁴Surely none shall put forth his hand to a ruinous heap,

Neither because of these things shall help come in one's calamity,

²⁵If I have not wept for him that was in trouble,

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