1 “But now those younger than I, as far as days, laugh at me, whose fathers I rejected for setting with the dogs of my sheep and goats.
2 Moreover, what use to me is the strength of their hands? With them, vigor is destroyed.
3 Through want and through barren hunger they are gnawing in the dry region in the darkness of desolation and waste.
4 They are picking salt herbs, the leaves of bushes, and the roots of broom trees to warm themselves.
5 They were driven out from fellow people; they shout at them as at a thief,
6 so that they dwell in holes of the ground and in the rocks.
7 They bray among the bushes; they are gathered under the nettles.
8 A senseless crowd, yes, a disreputable brood, they were cast out from the land.
9 “But now I am their mocking song, and I have become a byword for them.
10 They abhor me; they keep aloof from me, and they do not withhold spit from my face
11 because he has loosened his bowstring and humbled me, and they have thrown off restraint in my presence.
12 On the right hand the brood rises up; they put me to flight, and they build up their siege ramps against me.
13 They destroy my path; they promote my destruction; they have no helper.
14 As through a wide breach they come; amid a crash they rush on.
15 Terrors are turned upon me; my honor is pursued as by the wind, and my hope of deliverance passed by like a cloud.
16 “And now my life is poured out onto me; days of misery have taken hold of me.
17 At night I am in great pain; my pains do not take a rest.
18 He seizes my clothing with great power; he grasps me by my tunic’s collar.
19 He has cast me into the dirt, and I have become like dust and ashes.
20 I cry to you for help, but you do not answer me; I stand, and you merely look at me.
21 You have turned cruel to me; you persecute me with your hand’s might.
22 You lift me up to the wind—you make me ride it, and you toss me about in the storm.
23 Indeed, I know that you will bring me to death and to the house of assembly for all the living.
24 “Surely someone must not send a hand against the needy when, in his misfortune, there is a cry of help for them.
25 Have I not wept for the unfortunate, and grieved myself over the poor?
26 Indeed, I hoped for good, but evil came, and I waited for light, but darkness came.
27 My bowels are in turmoil, and they are not still; days of misery come to confront me.
28 I go about in mourning garb, but not in sunlight; I stand up in the assembly, and I cry for help.
29 I am a companion for the jackals and a companion for ostriches.
30 My skin turns black on me, and my bones burn with heat.
31 So my lyre came to be used for mourning, and my flute for the voice of those who weep.