✧“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs. ✧2Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished? ✧3They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation. ✧4They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food. ✧5They are driven out from among men. They cry after them as after a thief, ✧6so that they live in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks. ✧7They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles. ✧8They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men. They were flogged out of the land. ✧9“Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them. ✧10They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face. ✧11For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me. ✧12On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet. They cast their ways of destruction up against me. ✧13They mar my path. They promote my destruction without anyone’s help. ✧14As through a wide breach they come. They roll themselves in amid the ruin. ✧15Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honor as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud. ✧16“Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold of me. ✧17In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest. ✧18My garment is disfigured by great force. It binds me about as the collar of my tunic. ✧19He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes. ✧20I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand up, and you gaze at me. ✧21You have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of your hand you persecute me. ✧22You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it. You dissolve me in the storm. ✧23For I know that you will bring me to death, to the house appointed for all living. ✧24“However doesn’t one stretch out a hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help? ✧25Didn’t I weep for him who was in trouble? Wasn’t my soul grieved for the needy? ✧26When I looked for good, then evil came. When I waited for light, darkness came. ✧27My heart is troubled, and doesn’t rest. Days of affliction have come on 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 grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat. ✧31Therefore my harp has turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.