✧But now [they that are] younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. ✧2Yea, whereto [might] the strength of their hands [profit] me, in whom old age was perished? ✧3For want and famine [they were] solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. ✧4Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots [for] their meat. ✧5They were driven forth from among [men], (they cried after them as [after] a thief;) ✧6To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, [in] caves of the earth, and [in] the rocks. ✧7Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together. ✧8[They were] children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. ✧9And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword. ✧10They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face. ✧11Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me. ✧12Upon [my] right [hand] rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction. ✧13They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper. ✧14They came [upon me] as a wide breaking in [of waters:] in the desolation they rolled themselves [upon me]. ✧15Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud. ✧16And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me. ✧17My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest. ✧18By the great force [of my disease] is my garment changed: 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 hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me [not]. ✧21Thou art become cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me. ✧22Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride [upon it], and dissolvest my substance. ✧23For I know [that] thou wilt bring me [to] death, and [to] the house appointed for all living. ✧24Howbeit he will not stretch out [his] hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction. ✧25Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was [not] my soul grieved for the poor? ✧26When I looked for good, then evil came [unto me:] and when I waited for light, there came darkness. ✧27My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me. ✧28I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, [and] I cried in the congregation. ✧29I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. ✧30My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat. ✧31My harp also is [turned] to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.