And now at me they laugh, younger in days than I,{HR}Whose fathers I had disdained to set with the dogs of my flock!
Even the strength of their hands, what [was] it to me?
In them the prime was lost through want and hunger,{HR}Who yesterday were gnawing the desert, the waste, and the wild,
Plucking saltwort in the jungles, roots of broom their food.
At them, driven out of the midst, they hooted, as [at] a thief,
To dwell in the horror of glens, dens of the earth, and rocks.
Among the bushes they brayed, under the nettles huddled,
Sons of folly, sons of no-name, who were whipped out of the land.
And now I am become their song, and I am their bye-word;
Abhorring me, they get far from me,{HR}And even withhold not spittle from my face.
For he hath loosed my cord, and humbled me,{HR}And they have cast away the bridle before my face.
On the right riseth up a brood; they push aside my feet,{HR}And cast up against me their destructive ways;
They tear up my path, helping on my downfall;{HR}They have no helper;
They come as [through] a wide breach,{HR}Under the ruin they roll onward.
Terrors turn on me; they pursue like a storm my dignity,{HR}And my prosperity like a cloud is gone.
And now my soul poureth itself out upon me;{HR}Days of suffering hold me fast;
The night pierceth my bones, and my gnawers rest not.
With great violence is my clothing changed;{HR}It girdeth me as the collar of my vest.
He hath cast me into the mire,{HR}And I am become as dust and ashes.
I cry to thee, but thou dost not answer me;{HR}I stand, and thou dost look fixedly at me.
Thou art changed to a cruel one towards me,{HR}With the strength of thy hand thou warrest against me.
Raising me on the wind, thou makest me borne off,{HR}And in my very substance desolvest me.
And I know thou art bringing me to death,{HR}And to the house of assembly for all living.
Surely there is no prayer when he putteth forth the hand,{HR}Though they cry out, in his destroying.
For have I not wept over one whose day is hard?{HR}Was [not] my soul sad over the needy?
Yet when I looked for good, evil came,{HR}And when I waited for light, darkness came.
My bowels are made to boil, and are not silent;{HR}Days of affliction have overtaken me.
I am going as blackened without the sun;{HR}I stand up in the assembly, I cry out.
Of jackals am I become brother,{HR}And companion of ostriches.
My skin off me is black,{HR}And my bones are burned with heat,
And my harp is [turned] to wailing,{HR}And my pipe to the voice of weepers.