¹But now they laugh at me, those younger than I in days, whose fathers I refused to set with the dogs of my flock.

²Even the strength of their hands—what was it to me? In them vigor had perished.

³In want and in hunger they are barren, gnawing the parched land, yesterday's ruin and desolation.

⁴those who pluck mallow by the shrubs, and the root of the broom plants is their food.

⁵From the midst they are driven out; people shout at them as at a thief.

⁶In the dreaded chasm of the wadis they dwell, in holes of the dust and the rocks.

⁷Among the shrubs they bray; under the brambles they are joined together.

⁸Sons of the senseless, also sons of no name, they were scourged from the land.

⁹And now I am their song, and I have become a word to them.

¹⁰They abhor me; they are far from me, and from my face they do not hold back spit.

¹¹For he has loosened my cord and afflicted me, and they have let loose the bridle from my face.

¹²On my right hand the brood rises; they send away my feet and heap up against me the ways of their disaster.

¹³They tore down my pathway; they gain by my destruction, with no helper for them.

¹⁴Like a wide breach they come; under the ruin they roll themselves on.

¹⁵Terrors have been turned upon me; my nobility is pursued like the wind, and my deliverance has passed away like a cloud.

¹⁶And now my being pours itself out over me; days of affliction seize me.

¹⁷By night my bones are bored through from me, and my gnawing pains do not lie down.

¹⁸With great force my clothing disguises itself; like the mouth of my tunic it girds me about.

¹⁹He has cast me into the mud, and I have come to resemble dust and ashes.

²⁰I cry out for help to you, and you do not answer me; I stand, and you consider me closely.

²¹You turn yourself into one cruel to me; with the might of your hand you bear a grudge against me.

²²You lift me up to the wind, you make me ride it, and you dissolve my sound wisdom.

²³For I know that you will bring me back to death, to the house of meeting for every living one.

²⁴Surely no one stretches out a hand against a heap of ruins, or in his disaster raises a cry for them.

²⁵Did I not weep for him whose day was hard? Did my being not grieve for the needy?

²⁶Though I waited for good, evil came; and I hoped for light, and gloom came.

²⁷My inward parts boil and are not still; days of affliction have met me.

²⁸I go about darkened, without sun; I rise in the assembly and cry out for help.

²⁹I have become a brother to jackals, and a companion to the daughters of the ostrich.

³⁰My skin has turned black upon me, and my bones are scorched with heat.

³¹And has become my lyre mourning, and my pipe the sound of those who weep.