1“But now those younger than I mock me,
         Whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock.

2“Indeed, what good was the strength of their hands to me?
         Vigor had perished from them.

3“From want and famine they are gaunt
         Who gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation,

4Who pluck mallow by the bushes,
         And whose food is the root of the broom shrub.

5“They are driven from the community;
         They shout against them as against a thief,

6So that they dwell in dreadful valleys,
         In holes of the earth and of the rocks.

7“Among the bushes they cry out;
         Under the nettles they are gathered together.

8“Fools, even those without a name,
         They were scourged from the land.

9“And now I have become their taunt,
         I have even become a byword to them.

10“They abhor me and stand aloof from me,
         And they do not refrain from spitting at my face.

11“Because He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me,
         They have cast off the bridle before me.

12“On the right hand their brood arises;
         They thrust aside my feet and build up against me their ways of destruction.

13“They break up my path,
         They profit from my destruction;
         No one restrains them.

14“As through a wide breach they come,
         Amid the tempest they roll on.

15“Terrors are turned against me;
         They pursue my honor as 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 seized me.

17“At night it pierces my bones within me,
         And my gnawing pains take no rest.

18“By a great force my garment is distorted;
         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 out to You for help, but You do not answer me;
         I stand up, and You turn Your attention against me.

21“You have become cruel to me;
         With the might of Your hand You persecute me.

22“You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride;
         And You dissolve me in a storm.

23“For I know that You will bring me to death
         And to the house of meeting for all living.

24“Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand,
         Or in his disaster therefore cry out for help?

25“Have I not wept for the one whose life is hard?
         Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

26“When I expected good, then evil came;
         When I waited for light, then darkness came.

27“I am seething within and cannot relax;
         Days of affliction confront me.

28“I go about mourning without comfort;
         I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help.

29“I have become a brother to jackals
         And a companion of ostriches.

30“My skin turns black on me,
         And my bones burn with fever.

31“Therefore my harp is turned to mourning,
         And my flute to the sound of those who weep.

NASB ©1995