¹ But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

² Yea, the strength of their hands, to what should it profit me? Men in whom ripe age is perished.

³ They are gaunt with want and famine. They gnaw the dry ground in the gloom of waste and desolation.

⁴ They pluck mallows by the bushes, and the roots of the juniper are their food.

⁵ They are driven forth from the midst of men. They cry out after them as after a thief,

⁶ so that they dwell in frightful valleys, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

⁷ Among the bushes they bray, under the nettles they are gathered together.

⁸ They are sons of fools, yea, sons of base men. They were scourged out of the land.

⁹ And now I have become their song, Yea, I am a byword to them.

¹⁰ They abhor me. They stand aloof from me, and do not spare to spit in my face.

¹¹ For he has loosed his cord, and afflicted me. And they have cast off the bridle before me.

¹² Upon my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet, and they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

¹³ They mar my path. They set forward my calamity, even men who have no helper.

¹⁴ As through a wide breach they come. In the midst of the ruin they roll themselves upon me.

¹⁵ Terrors are turned upon me. They chase my honor as the wind, and my welfare is passed away as a cloud.

¹⁶ And now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

¹⁷ In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.

¹⁸ By the great force my garment is disfigured. 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 to thee, and thou do not answer me. I stand up, and thou gaze at me.

²¹ Thou have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of thy hand thou persecute me.

²² Thou lift me up to the wind. Thou cause me to ride upon it, and thou disintegrate me in the storm.

²³ For I know that thou will bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

²⁴ However does not a man stretch out the hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?

²⁵ Did I not weep for him who was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

²⁶ When I looked for good, then evil came. And when I waited for light, there came darkness.

²⁷ My heart is troubled, and does not rest. Days of affliction have come upon me.

²⁸ I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.

²⁹ I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.

³⁰ My skin is black, and falls from me. And my bones are burned with heat.

³¹ Therefore my harp has turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.