✧But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. ✧2Yea, the strength of their hands, whereto should it profit me? Men in whom ripe age is perished. ✧3They are gaunt with want and famine; They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of wasteness and desolation. ✧4They pluck salt-wort by the bushes; And the roots of the broom are their food. ✧5They are driven forth from the midst [of men]; They cry after them as after a thief; ✧6So that they dwell in frightful valleys, In holes of the earth and of the rocks. ✧7Among the bushes they bray; Under the nettles they are gathered together. ✧8[They are] children of fools, yea, children of base men; They were scourged out of the land. ✧9And now I am become their song, Yea, I am a byword unto them. ✧10They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, And spare not to spit in my face. ✧11For he hath loosed his cord, and afflicted me; And they have cast off the bridle before me. ✧12Upon my right hand rise the rabble; They thrust aside my feet, And they cast up against me their ways of destruction. ✧13They mar my path, They set forward my calamity, [Even] men that have no helper. ✧14As through a wide breach they come: In the midst of the ruin they roll themselves [upon me]. ✧15Terrors are turned upon me; They chase mine honor as the wind; And my welfare is passed away as a cloud. ✧16And now my soul is poured out within me; Days of affliction have taken hold upon me. ✧17In the night season my bones are pierced in me, And the [pains] that gnaw me take no rest. ✧18By [God’s] great force is my garment disfigured; It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat. ✧19He hath cast me into the mire, And I am become like dust and ashes. ✧20I cry unto thee, and thou dost not answer me: I stand up, and thou gazest at me. ✧21Thou art turned to be cruel to me; With the might of thy hand thou persecutest me. ✧22Thou liftest me up to the wind, thou causest me to ride [upon it]; And thou dissolvest me in the storm. ✧23For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, And to the house appointed for all living. ✧24Howbeit doth not one stretch out the hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help? ✧25Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the needy? ✧26When I looked for good, then evil came; And when I waited for light, there came darkness. ✧27My heart is troubled, and resteth not; Days of affliction are come upon me. ✧28I go mourning without the sun: I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help. ✧29I am a brother to jackals, And a companion to ostriches. ✧30My skin is black, [and falleth] from me, And my bones are burned with heat. ✧31Therefore is my harp [turned] to mourning, And my pipe into the voice of them that weep.