1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger than I,whose fathers I disdained too much to put with my sheep dogs.
2 Moreover, the strength of their hands – what use was it to me?Men whose strength had perished;
3 gaunt with want and hunger,they would gnaw the parched land,in former time desolate and waste.
4 By the brush they would gather herbs from the salt marshes,and the root of the broom tree was their food.
5 They were banished from the community – people shouted at them like they would shout at thieves –
6 so that they had to live in the dry stream beds,in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.
7 They brayed like animals among the bushesand were huddled together under the nettles.