[1] “But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.
[2] What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone?
[3] Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;
[4] they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes, and the roots of the broom tree for their food.
[5] They are driven out from human company; they shout after them as after a thief.
[6] In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
[7] Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together.
[8] A senseless, a nameless brood, they have been whipped out of the land.
[9] “And now I have become their song; I am a byword to them.
[10] They abhor me; they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.
[11] Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.
[12] On my right hand the rabble rise; they push away my feet; they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
[13] They break up my path; they promote my calamity; they need no one to help them.
[14] As through a wide breach they come; amid the crash they roll on.
[15] Terrors are turned upon me; my honor is pursued as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.
[16] “And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me.
[17] The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.
[18] With great force my garment is disfigured; it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
[19] God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.
[20] I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.
[21] You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me.
[22] You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
[23] For I know that you will bring me to death and to the house appointed for all living.
[24] “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, and in his disaster cry for help?
[25] Did not I weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
[26] But when I hoped for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came.
[27] My inward parts are in turmoil and never still; days of affliction come to meet me.
[28] I go about darkened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
[29] I am a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches.
[30] My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.
[31] My lyre is turned to mourning, and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.