| 1 | But now those who are younger than I make sport of me; those whose fathers I would not have put with the dogs of my flocks. |
| 2 | Of what use is the strength of their hands to me? all force is gone from them. |
| 3 | They are wasted for need of food, biting the dry earth; their only hope of life is in the waste land. |
| 4 | They are pulling off the salt leaves from the brushwood, and making a meal of roots. |
| 5 | They are sent out from among their townsmen, men are crying after them as thieves |
| 6 | They have to get a resting-place in the hollows of the valleys, in holes of the earth and rocks. |
| 7 | They make noises like asses among the brushwood; they get together under the thorns. |
| 8 | They are sons of shame, and of men without a name, who have been forced out of the land. |
| 9 | And now I have become their song, and I am a word of shame to them. |
| 10 | I am disgusting to them; they keep away from me, and put marks of shame on me. |
| 11 | For he has made loose the cord of my bow, and put me to shame; he has sent down my flag to the earth before me. |
| 12 | The lines of his men of war put themselves in order, and make high their ways of destruction against me: |
| 13 | They have made waste my roads, with a view to my destruction; his bowmen come round about me; |
| 14 | As through a wide broken place in the wall they come on, I am overturned by the shock of their attack. |
| 15 | Fears have come on me; my hope is gone like the wind, and my well-being like a cloud. |
| 16 | But now my soul is turned to water in me, days of trouble overtake me: |
| 17 | The flesh is gone from my bones, and they give me no rest; there is no end to my pains. |
| 18 | With great force he takes a grip of my clothing, pulling me by the neck of my coat. |
| 19 | Truly God has made me low, even to the earth, and I have become like dust. |
| 20 | You give no answer to my cry, and take no note of my prayer. |
| 21 | You have become cruel to me; the strength of your hand is hard on me. |
| 22 | Lifting me up, you make me go on the wings of the wind; I am broken up by the storm. |
| 23 | For I am certain that you will send me back to death, and to the meeting-place ordered for all living. |
| 24 | Has not my hand been stretched out in help to the poor? have I not been a saviour to him in his trouble? |
| 25 | Have I not been weeping for the crushed? and was not my soul sad for him who was in need? |
| 26 | For I was looking for good, and evil came; I was waiting for light, and it became dark. |
| 27 | My feelings are strongly moved, and give me no rest; days of trouble have overtaken me. |
| 28 | I go about in dark clothing, uncomforted; I get up in the public place, crying out for help. |
| 29 | I have become a brother to the jackals, and go about in the company of ostriches. |
| 30 | My skin is black and dropping off me; and my bones are burning with the heat of my disease. |
| 31 | And my music has been turned to sorrow, and the sound of my pipe into the noise of weeping. |
