1“But now they make sport of me,

those who are younger than I,

whose fathers I would have disdained

to set with the dogs of my flock.*

2What could I gain from the strength of their hands?

All their vigor is gone.

3Through want and hard hunger

they gnaw the dry and desolate ground;

4they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes

and to warm themselves the roots of broom.

5They are driven out from society;

people shout after them as after a thief.

6In the gullies of wadis they must live,

in holes in the ground and in the rocks.

7Among the bushes they bray;

under the nettles they huddle together.

8A senseless, disreputable brood,

they have been whipped out of the land.

9“And now they mock me in song;

I am a byword to them.*

10They abhor me; they keep aloof from me;

they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.*

11Because God has loosed my bowstring and humbled me,

they have cast off restraint in my presence.*

12On my right hand the rabble rise up;

they send me sprawling

and build roads for my ruin.*

13They break up my path;

they promote my calamity;

no one restrainsx them.

14As through a wide breach they come;

amid the crash they roll on.

15Terrors are turned upon me;

my honor is pursued as by the wind,

and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.*

16“And now my soul is poured out within me;

days of affliction have taken hold of me.*

17The night racks my bones,

and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

18With violence he seizes my garment;y

he grasps me byz the collar of my tunic.

19He has cast me into the mire,

and I have become like dust and ashes.*

20I cry to you, and you do not answer me;

I stand, and you merely look at me.*

21You have turned cruel to me;

with the might of your hand you persecute me.*

22You lift me up on the wind, you make me ride on it,

and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.*

23I know that you will bring me to death,

to the house appointed for all living.*

24“Surely one does not turn against the needy,a

when in disaster they cry for help.b^,*

25Did I not weep for those whose day was hard?

Was not my soul grieved for the poor?*

26But when I looked for good, evil came,

and when I waited for light, darkness came.*

27My inward parts are in turmoil and are never still;

days of affliction come to meet me.

28I go about in sunless gloom;

I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.*

29I am a brother of jackals

and a companion of ostriches.*

30My skin turns black and falls from me,

and my bones burn with heat.*

31My lyre is turned to mourning

and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.*