1But now they mock me, those younger than I in days, whose fathers I would have refused to set with the dogs of my flock.
2Even the strength of their hands — what use was it to me? Their vigor had perished.
3Gaunt from want and hunger, they gnaw the parched land, in the gloom of desolation and waste.
4They pluck saltwort beside the bushes, and the root of the broom tree is their food.
5They are driven out from the community; people shout after them as after a thief.
6They must dwell in the gullies of the wadis, in holes of the ground and among the rocks.
7Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together.
8Sons of fools, yes, sons of no-name, they were whipped out of the land.
9And now I have become their taunt-song; I am a byword to them.
10They abhor me, they keep far from me, and they do not withhold spittle from my face.
11Because he has loosed my cord and afflicted me, they too have cast off restraint before me.
12On my right hand the rabble rises up; they thrust away my feet and cast up against me their paths of destruction.
13They tear up my path; they promote my ruin, though no one helps them.
14As through a wide breach they come; amid the crash they roll on.
15Terrors are turned upon me; my dignity is pursued as by the wind, and my deliverance has passed like a cloud.
16And now my life pours itself out within me; days of affliction have seized me.
17By night my bones are pierced through within me, and my gnawing pains do not rest.
18With great force my garment is disfigured; it binds me tight like the collar of my tunic.
19He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.
20I cry out to you for help, but you do not answer me; I stand, and you merely stare at me.
21You have turned cruel toward me; with the might of your hand you assail me.
22You lift me up to the wind, you make me ride upon it, and you dissolve me in the storm.
23For I know you will bring me back to death, to the house appointed for all the living.
24Surely one does not stretch out a hand in prayer, or cry out in one’s calamity because of these things?
25Did I not weep for the one whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
26Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I waited for light, darkness came.
27My bowels boil and do not rest; days of affliction have confronted me.
28I go about blackened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
29I have become a brother to jackals and a companion to ostriches.
30My skin turns black and peels from me, and my bones burn with fever.
31So my lyre has become mourning, and my flute the sound of those who weep.
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