1"But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have refused to put with the dogs of my flock.

2Yea, what profit to me was the strength of their hands, for their vigor had perished from them?

3They are dried up with want and famine; who fled into the wilderness, which was before desolate and waste,

4Those plucking mallows by the bushes, and broom roots for their food.

5They are driven forth from the midst of men; they shouted after them as a thief.

6They dwell in the clefts of the valleys, in caves of the earth and in rocks.

7They bray among the bushes; they huddle together under the nettles;

8 They were children of fools, yea, children of base men; they were scourged 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 spitting in my face.

11Because He has loosed my cord and afflicted me, they have also cast off restraint before me.

12On my right an insolent brood rises; they push away my feet and cast up against me the ways of their destruction.

13They have broken down my path, they gain by my trouble without anyone helping them.

14As through a wide breach they come; in the midst of ruin they roll themselves upon me.

15Terrors have turned upon 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 upon me.

17My bones are pierced with pain in the night; and my gnawing pains give me no rest.

18By the great force of my disease my garment is disfigured; it binds me about like the collar of my coat.

19He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

20I cried to You, and You did not answer me; I stood up, and You did not consider me.

21You have become cruel to me; with Your mighty hand You oppose me.

22You lift me up to the wind; You cause me to ride upon it; and You dissolve my substance.

23For I know that You will bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

24Surely one will stretch out his hand from a ruinous heap, or in his calamity cry out for help.

25Did I not weep for him who was in trouble; and was not 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 without any comfort; I stood up and I cried out in the assembly.

29I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to the ostrich.

30My skin is black and falling from me, and my bones are burning with heat.

31And my lyre has turned to mourning, and my pipe to the sound of weeping."