¹“But now they ilaugh at me,

men who are jyounger 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,

kmen whose lvigor is gone?

³Through want and hard hunger

they mgnaw nthe dry ground by night in owaste and desolation;

⁴they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes,

and the roots of the broom tree for their food.1

⁵pThey are driven out from human company;

they shout after them as after a thief.

⁶In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell,

in holes of the earth and of qthe rocks.

⁷Among the bushes they rbray;

under sthe nettles they huddle together.

⁸A senseless, a nameless brood,

they have been whipped out of the land.

⁹“And now I have become their tsong;

I am ua byword to them.

¹⁰They vabhor me; they keep aloof from me;

they do not hesitate to wspit at the sight of me.

¹¹Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,

they have cast off restraint2 in my presence.

¹²On my xright hand the rabble rise;

they push away my feet;

they ycast up against me their ways of destruction.

¹³They break up my path;

they promote my zcalamity;

they need no one to help them.

¹⁴As through a wide abreach they come;

amid the crash they roll on.

¹⁵bTerrors are turned upon me;

my honor is pursued as by the wind,

and my prosperity has passed away like ca cloud.

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

days of affliction have taken hold of me.

¹⁷eThe night fracks my bones,

and the pain that ggnaws me takes no rest.

¹⁸With great force my garment is hdisfigured;

it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.

¹⁹God3 has cast me into the mire,

and I have become like idust and ashes.

²⁰I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;

I stand, and you only look at me.

²¹You have jturned cruel to me;

with the might of your hand you kpersecute me.

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

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

²³mFor I know that you will bring me to death

and to the house appointed for nall living.

²⁴“Yet does not one in a oheap of ruins stretch out his hand,

and in his disaster cry for help?4

²⁵Did not I pweep for him whose day was hard?

Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

²⁶But qwhen I hoped for good, evil came,

and when I waited for light, rdarkness came.

²⁷My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;

days of affliction scome to meet me.

²⁸I tgo about darkened, but not by the sun;

I stand up in uthe assembly and cry for help.

²⁹I am a brother of vjackals

and a companion of wostriches.

³⁰My xskin turns black and falls from me,

and my ybones burn with heat.

³¹My zlyre is aturned to mourning,

and my zpipe to the voice of those who weep.