• 1 “But now those younger than I laugh at me, Whose fathers I rejected even to put with the dogs of my flock.
  • 2 “Indeed, what good was the strength of their hands to me? Vigor had perished from them.
  • 3 “From want and famine they are gaunt, Who gnaw the dry ground by night in destruction and desolation,
  • 4 Who pluck mallow by the bushes, And whose food is the root of the broom tree.
  • 5 “They are driven from the community; They shout against them as against a thief,
  • 6 So that they dwell in the slopes of the valleys, In holes of the dust and of the rocks.
  • 7 “Among the bushes they cry out; Under the nettles they are gathered together.
  • 8 “Wicked fools, even those without a name, They were scourged from the land.
  • 9 “And now I have become their mocking song; I have even become a taunting word to them.
  • 10 “They abhor me and keep a distance from me, And they do not hold back from spitting at my face.
  • 11 “Because He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me, They have thrust aside their bridle before me.
  • 12 “On the right hand their brood arises; They thrust aside my feet and build up against me their ways to disaster.
  • 13 “They break up my path; They profit from my destruction; They have no helper.
  • 14 “As through a wide breach they come, Amid the storm they roll on.
  • 15 “Terrors are turned against me; They pursue my nobility as the wind, And my hope for salvation has passed away like a cloud.
  • 16 “And now my soul is poured out within me; Days of affliction have seized me.
  • 17 “At night it pierces my bones within me, And my gnawing pains take no rest.
  • 18 “By a great force my garment is distorted; It seizes me about as the collar of my tunic.
  • 19 “He has cast me into the mire, And I have become like dust and ashes.
  • 20 “I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You carefully consider how to be against me.
  • 21 “You have become cruel to me; With the might of Your hand You hunted me down.
  • 22 “You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride; And You melt me away in a storm.
  • 23 “For I know that You will bring me to death And to the house of meeting for all living.
  • 24 “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, Or, in his upheaval, is there a cry for help because of them?
  • 25 “Have I not wept for the one whose life is hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
  • 26 “When I hoped for good, then evil came; When I waited for light, then thick darkness came.
  • 27 “I am boiling within and cannot be silent; Days of affliction confront me.
  • 28 “I go about darkened but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help.
  • 29 “I have become a brother to jackals And a companion of ostriches.
  • 30 “My skin turns black on me, And my bones burn with fever.
  • 31 “Therefore my harp is turned to mourning, And my flute to the sound of those who weep.