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