1. But now they that are younger than I hold me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.
2. Yea, how might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom vigor has perished?
3. From want and famine they are gaunt; fleeing of late into the wilderness, desolate and waste.
4. Who pick mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their food.
5. They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;)
6. To dwell in the clefts of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.
7. Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.
8. They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.
9. And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.
10. They abhor me, they flee far from me, and hesitate not to spit in my face.
11. Because he has loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also cast off restraint before me.
12. Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.
13. They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.
14. They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.