¹ But now those younger laugh at me, whose fathers I would have refused to set with the dogs of my flock.

² Also, what profit for me was the strength of their hands, for or full vigor had perished from them?

³ They are dried up with want and famine; they who gnaw the dry ground, which was before waste and ruin,

⁴ those plucking mallows by the bushes, and broom roots for their food.

⁵ They are driven forth from the midst; they cried against them as a thief.

⁶ They dwell in the chasms of the valleys, in holes of the earth and in rocks.

⁷ They bray among the bushes; they huddle together under the nettles;

⁸ sons of fools, yea, sons without a name; they have been whipped out of the land.

⁹ And now I am their song; yea, I am their byword.

¹⁰ They despise me, and they flee far from me; they do not spare spit from my face.

¹¹ Because He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me, they have also thrown off the bridle before me.

¹² On my right a brood rises; they push away my feet and raise up against me the ways of their ruin.

¹³ They have broken down my path, they gain by my trouble; they have no helper.

¹⁴ As through a wide break they came on; they roll under a ruin.

¹⁵ Terrors have turned on me; they pursue my soul like the wind; and my good passes away like a cloud.

¹⁶ And now my soul is poured out within me; the days of affliction have taken hold on me.

¹⁷ My bones are pierced in me in the night; and my gnawings never lie down.

¹⁸ By the great force of my disease my clothing is exposed; it binds me about like the mouth of my coat.

¹⁹ He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

²⁰ I cried to You, and You did not hear me; I stood up, and You did not consider me.

²¹ You changed to be cruel to me; with Your mighty hand You assault me.

²² You lift me up to the wind; You cause me to ride on it; and You melt me in a storm.

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 ruin-heap, though they cry in their misfortune.

²⁵ Did I not weep for him whose day was hard; and my soul grieved for the poor?

²⁶ When I looked for good, then evil came; and when I waited for light, then darkness came.

²⁷ My bowels boiled, and did not rest; the days of trouble confront me.

²⁸ I go in mourning with no sun; I stood up and I cried out in the congregation.

²⁹ I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to daughters of the ostrich.

³⁰ My skin is black on me, and my bones are burned with heat.

³¹ And my lyre has turned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of weeping.