Chapter 30 (Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent)

‘But now they make sport of me,
   those who are younger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained
   to set with the dogs of my flock. 
What could I gain from the strength of their hands?
   All their vigour is gone. 
Through want and hard hunger
   they gnaw the dry and desolate ground, 
they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes,
   and to warm themselves the roots of broom. 
They are driven out from society;
   people shout after them as after a thief. 
In the gullies of wadis they must live,
   in holes in the ground, and in the rocks. 
Among the bushes they bray;
   under the nettles they huddle together. 
A senseless, disreputable brood,
   they have been whipped out of the land. 

‘And now they mock me in song;
   I am a byword to them. 
They abhor me, they keep aloof from me;
   they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me. 
Because God has loosed my bowstring and humbled me,
   they have cast off restraint in my presence. 
On my right hand the rabble rise up;
   they send me sprawling,
   and build roads for my ruin. 
They break up my path,
   they promote my calamity;
   no one restrains them. 
As through a wide breach they come;
   amid the crash they roll on. 
Terrors are turned upon me;
   my honour is pursued as by the wind,
   and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud. 

‘And now my soul is poured out within me;
   days of affliction have taken hold of me. 
The night racks my bones,
   and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest. 
With violence he seizes my garment;
   he grasps me by the collar of my tunic. 
He has cast me into the mire,
   and I have become like dust and ashes. 
I cry to you and you do not answer me;
   I stand, and you merely look at me. 
You have turned cruel to me;
   with the might of your hand you persecute me. 
You lift me up on the wind, you make me ride on it,
   and you toss me about in the roar of the storm. 
I know that you will bring me to death,
   and to the house appointed for all living. 

‘Surely one does not turn against the needy,
   when in disaster they cry for help. 
Did I not weep for those whose day was hard?
   Was not my soul grieved for the poor? 
But when I looked for good, evil came;
   and when I waited for light, darkness came. 
My inward parts are in turmoil, and are never still;
   days of affliction come to meet me. 
I go about in sunless gloom;
   I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. 
I am a brother of jackals,
   and a companion of ostriches. 
My skin turns black and falls from me,
   and my bones burn with heat. 
My lyre is turned to mourning,
   and my pipe to the voice of those who weep. 

Commentary

The Lord intercedes for us not in words, but in mercy; for what he did not wish to see condemned or lost in his chosen ones, that he set free by taking it on himself. A helper is therefore sought, that our petition might be heard: for unless some mediator intercedes for us our prayers would undoubtedly remain as if unspoken, in the ears of Almighty God. (St. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job)

Musical Selection

O keeper of men? why hast thou set me opposite to thee, and I am become burdensome to myself? Spare me, for my days are nothing.

Collect