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 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.