1But now those who are younger than I make sport of me; those whose fathers I would not have put with the dogs of my flocks.
2Of what use is the strength of their hands to me? all force is gone from them.
3They are wasted for need of food, biting the dry earth; their only hope of life is in the waste land.
4They are pulling off the salt leaves from the brushwood, and making a meal of roots.
5They are sent out from among their townsmen, men are crying after them as thieves
6They have to get a resting-place in the hollows of the valleys, in holes of the earth and rocks.
7They make noises like asses among the brushwood; they get together under the thorns.
8They are sons of shame, and of men without a name, who have been forced out of the land.
9And now I have become their song, and I am a word of shame to them.
10I am disgusting to them; they keep away from me, and put marks of shame on me.
11For he has made loose the cord of my bow, and put me to shame; he has sent down my flag to the earth before me.
12The lines of his men of war put themselves in order, and make high their ways of destruction against me:
13They have made waste my roads, with a view to my destruction; his bowmen come round about me;
14As through a wide broken place in the wall they come on, I am overturned by the shock of their attack.
15Fears have come on me; my hope is gone like the wind, and my well-being like a cloud.
16But now my soul is turned to water in me, days of trouble overtake me:
17The flesh is gone from my bones, and they give me no rest; there is no end to my pains.
18With great force he takes a grip of my clothing, pulling me by the neck of my coat.
19Truly God has made me low, even to the earth, and I have become like dust.
20You give no answer to my cry, and take no note of my prayer.
21You have become cruel to me; the strength of your hand is hard on me.
22Lifting me up, you make me go on the wings of the wind; I am broken up by the storm.
23For I am certain that you will send me back to death, and to the meeting-place ordered for all living.
24Has not my hand been stretched out in help to the poor? have I not been a saviour to him in his trouble?
25Have I not been weeping for the crushed? and was not my soul sad for him who was in need?
26For I was looking for good, and evil came; I was waiting for light, and it became dark.
27My feelings are strongly moved, and give me no rest; days of trouble have overtaken me.
28I go about in dark clothing, uncomforted; I get up in the public place, crying out for help.
29I have become a brother to the jackals, and go about in the company of ostriches.
30My skin is black and dropping off me; and my bones are burning with the heat of my disease.
31And my music has been turned to sorrow, and the sound of my pipe into the noise of weeping.