1. “But now those who are younger than I mock me,whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock.
2. Yes, how does the strength of their hands profit me?Their vigor has perished.
3. For want and faminethey gnawed the parched land;fleeing into the wilderness in former time, desolate and waste.
4. Who pluck mallow by the bushes,and juniper roots for their food.
5. They were driven out from among men;they shout after them as after a thief.
6. They had to dwell in the rocky riverbeds,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, yes, children of vile men;they were scourged from the earth.
9. “Now I am their taunting song;yes, I am their byword.
10. They abhor me, they flee far from me;they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
11. Because He has loosed my bowstring and afflicted me,they have cast off the bridle before me.
12. At my right hand their brood arises;they push away my feet,and they raise against me their ways of destruction.
13. They tear apart my path,they promote my calamity;they have no helper.
14. They came upon me as a wide breach, with a crash they came;in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.
15. Terrors are turned on me;they pursue my dignity like the wind,and my help passes away as a cloud.
16. “Now my soul is poured out within me;the days of affliction have taken hold of me.
17. My bones are pierced in me at night,and my sinews have no rest.
18. By the great force of my disease my garment is changed;it binds me about as the collar of my coat.
19. He has cast me into the mire,and I have become like dust and ashes.
20. “I cry unto You, but You do not hear me;I stand up, and You do not regard me.
21. You have become cruel to me;with Your strong hand You oppose me.
22. You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride on it;You dissolve my success.
23. For I know that You will bring me to death,and to the house appointed for all living.
24. “Surely He will not stretch out His hand to the grave,though they cry when He destroys it.
25. Did I not weep for him who was in trouble?Was not my soul grieved for the poor?
26. When I looked for good, then evil disaster came upon me;and when I waited for light, darkness came.
27. My insides boiled and did not rest;the days of affliction have met me.
28. I went mourning without the sun;I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.
29. I am a brother of jackalsand a companion of owls.
30. My skin is black upon me,and my bones are burned with fever.
31. My harp is turned to mourning,and my flute to the voice of those who weep.