1“But now those younger than I laugh at me,

Whose fathers I rejected even to put with the dogs of my flock.

2Indeed, what good was the strength of their hands to me?

Vigor had perished from them.

3From want and famine they are gaunt,

Who gnaw the dry ground by night in destruction and desolation,

4Who pluck [†]mallow by the bushes,

And whose food is the root of the broom tree.

5They are driven from the community;

They shout against them as against a thief,

6So that they dwell in the slopes of the [†]valleys,

In holes of the dust and of the rocks.

7Among the bushes they [†]cry out;

Under the nettles they are gathered together.

8[†]Wicked fools, even [†]those without a name,

They were scourged from the land.

9“And now I have become their mocking song;

I have even become a taunting word to them.

10They abhor me and keep a distance from me,

And they do not [†]hold back from spitting at my face.

11Because [†]He has loosed [†]His [†]bowstring and afflicted me,

They have thrust aside their bridle before me.

12On the right hand their [†]brood arises;

They thrust aside my feet and build up against me their ways to disaster.

13They break up my path;

They profit [†]from my destruction;

They have no helper.

14As through a wide breach they come,

[†]Amid the storm they roll on.

15Terrors are turned against me;

They pursue my nobility as the wind,

And my hope for salvation has passed away like a cloud.

16“And now my soul is poured out [†]within me;

Days of affliction have seized me.

17At night it pierces my bones [†]within me,

And my gnawing pains take no rest.

18By a great force my garment is distorted;

It seizes me about as the collar of my tunic.

19He has cast me into the mire,

And I have become like dust and ashes.

20I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me;

I stand up, and You carefully consider how to be against me.

21You have [†]become cruel to me;

With the might of Your hand You hunted me down.

22You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride;

And You melt me away in a storm.

23For I know that You will bring me to death

And to the house of meeting for all living.

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

Or, in his upheaval, is there a cry for help because of them?

25Have I not wept for the [†]one whose life is hard?

Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

26When I hoped for good, then evil came;

When I waited for light, then thick darkness came.

27[†]I am boiling within and cannot be silent;

Days of affliction confront me.

28I go about darkened but not by the sun;

I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help.

29I have become a brother to jackals

And a companion of ostriches.

30My skin turns black [†]on me,

And my bones burn with [†]fever.

31Therefore my harp [†]is turned to mourning,

And my flute to the sound of those who weep.