1 "But now they laugh at me, men younger than I in years, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.
2 And what was the strength of their hands to me? Their vigor was gone.
3 Withered with want and famine, they gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of ruin and wasteland.
4 They pick mallow from among the brush, and the root of the broom bush is their food.
5 They are banished from the midst of men, who shout at them as at a thief.
6 They must dwell on the slopes of the ravines, in holes in the ground and among the rocks.
7 They bray among the shrubs; they huddle beneath the nettles.
8 A senseless brood, a nameless brood, they were scourged out of the land.
9 And now I am the theme of their song; I have become a byword among them.
10 They detest me, they stand aloof from me, and they do not spare my face their spit.
11 Because God has loosed his cord and humbled me, they have thrown off the bridle in my presence.
12 At my right hand the brood rises; they push my feet aside and heap up their ruinous ramps against me.
13 They tear up my path; they promote my downfall, though no one helps them.
14 They come in as through a wide breach; amid the wreckage they roll in.
15 Terrors are turned loose on me; they hound my dignity like the wind, and my welfare has vanished like a cloud.
16 And now my soul pours itself out within me; days of misery have laid hold of me.
17 By night my bones are bored through within me, and my gnawing pains do not lie down to rest.
18 With great force my clothing is twisted out of shape; it grips me like the neck of my tunic.
19 He has cast me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ash.
20 I cry to you for help, and you do not answer me; I stand up, and you only look at me.
21 You have changed into a cruel one toward me; with the strength of your hand you persecute me.
22 You lift me onto the wind and let it carry me off, and you toss me about in the roaring storm.
23 For I know you will return me to death, to the house where all the living meet.
24 Yet does a man not reach out his hand when he is in ruins, or cry out for help in his calamity?
25 Did I not weep for him whose day was hard? Did my soul not grieve for the poor?
26 But when I looked for good, evil came; when I hoped for light, darkness came.
27 My insides churn and do not rest; days of misery confront me.
28 I go about darkened, though not by the sun; I rise in the assembly and cry for help.
29 I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of ostriches.
30 My skin turns black and peels off me, and my bones burn with fever.
31 So my lyre is given to mourning, and my flute to the voice of weepers.