1“But now they laugh at me, those younger than I, whose fathers I would have refused to put with my sheep dogs.

2Of what use to me is the strength of their hands, since their manhood power has perished?

3They are dried up from lack and hunger, they flee to a parched land, formerly a waste and ruin.

4They pluck salt herbs by the bushes, and broom tree roots for their food.

5They were driven out from among men, they shouted at them as at a thief,

6to dwell in the gullies of wadis, holes of the ground and clefts.

7Among the bushes they cry out, under the nettles they huddled together –

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

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

10They have loathed me, they have kept far from me, and did not refrain from spitting in my face.

11Because He has loosed my bowstring and afflicted me, they have thrown off restraint in my presence.

12At my right hand a brood rises; they pushed away my feet, and they raise up against me their destructive ways.

13They have broken up my path, they gain by my ruin; no one restrains them.

14They come as through a wide breach; rushing on me under the ruins.

15Destructions are turned upon me; they pursue my life as the wind, and my welfare has passed like a cloud.

16And now my life pours itself out; days of affliction seize me.

17My bones have been pierced in me at night, and my gnawings never lie down.

18By great exertion is my garment changed – it girds me as the collar of my coat,

19throwing me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.

20I cry out to You, but You do not answer me; I stand up, but You only look at me.

21You have become cruel to me; with the power of Your hand You oppose me.

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

23For I have known that You bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

24Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, or in calamity cry out for help?

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

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

27My inward parts boiled and did not rest; days of affliction went before me.

28I went about blackened, but not by the sun; I stood up in the assembly, I cried for help.

29I became a brother of jackals, and a companion of ostriches.

30My skin became black upon me, and my bones burned with heat.

31So my lyre becomes mourning, and my flute the sound of weeping.