1But now those younger laugh at me, whose fathers I would have refused to set with the dogs of my flock. 2Also, what [profit] for me [was] the strength of their hands, [for] full vigor had perished from them? 3They are dried up with want and famine; they who gnaw the dry ground, [which was] before waste and ruin, 4[those] plucking mallows by the bushes, and broom roots [for] their food. 5They are driven forth from the midst; they cried against them as a thief. 6[They] dwell in the chasms of the valleys, [in] holes of the earth and [in] rocks. 7They bray among the bushes; they huddle together under the nettles; 8sons of fools, yea, sons without a name; they have been whipped out of the land. 9And now I am their song; yea, I am their byword. 10They despise me, and they flee far from me; they do not spare spit from my face. 11Because He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me, they have also thrown off the bridle before me. 12On [my] right a brood rises; they push away my feet and raise up against me the ways of their ruin. 13They have broken down my path, they gain by my trouble; they have no helper. 14As [through] a wide break they came [on]; they roll under a ruin. 15Terrors have turned on me; they pursue my soul like the wind; and my good passes away like a cloud. 16And now my soul is poured out within me; the days of affliction have taken hold on me. 17My bones are pierced in me in the night; and my gnawings never lie down. 18By the great force [of my disease] my clothing is exposed; it binds me about like the mouth of my coat. 19[He has] cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes. 20I cried to You, and You did not hear me; I stood up, and You did not consider me. 21You changed to [be] cruel to me; with Your mighty hand You assault me. 22You lift me up to the wind; You cause me to ride [on it]; and You melt me in a storm. 23For I know [that] You will bring me [to] death, and [to] the house appointed for all living. 24Surely He will not stretch out [His] hand to the ruin-heap, though they cry in their misfortune. 25Did I not weep for him whose day was hard; and my soul grieved for the poor? 26When I looked for good, then evil came; and when I waited for light, then darkness came. 27My bowels boiled, and did not rest; the days of trouble confront me. 28I go in mourning with no sun; I stood up [and] I cried out in the congregation. 29I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to daughters of the ostrich. 30My skin is black on me, and my bones are burned with heat. 31And my lyre has [turned] to mourning, and my flute to the sound of weeping.