1: But now [they that are] younger than I, have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. 2: Yes, to what [might] the strength of their hands [profit] me, in whom old age had perished? 3: For want and famine [they were] solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. 4: Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots [for] their food. 5: They were driven forth from among [men], (they cried after them, as [after] a thief;) 6: To dwell in the clefts of the valleys, [in] caves of the earth, and [in] the rocks. 7: Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were collected. 8: [They were] children of fools, yes, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. 9: And now I am their song, yes, I am their by-word. 10: They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face. 11: Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me. 12: Upon [my] right [hand] rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction. 13: They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper. 14: They came [upon me] as a wide breaking in [of waters]: in the desolation they rolled themselves [upon me]. 15: Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud. 16: And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me. 17: My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest. 18: By the great force [of my disease] is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat. 19: He hath cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes. 20: I cry to thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me [not]. 21: Thou hast become cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me. 22: Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride [upon it], and dissolvest my substance. 23: For I know [that] thou wilt bring me [to] death, and [to] the house appointed for all living. 24: Yet he will not stretch out [his] hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction. 25: Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was [not] my soul grieved for the poor? 26: When I looked for good, then evil came: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. 27: My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction came upon me. 28: I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, [and] I cried in the congregation. 29: I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. 30: My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat. 31: My harp also is [turned] to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.
