“But now they alaugh at me,
men who are byounger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained
to set with the dogs of my flock.
2 What could I gain from the strength of their hands,
amen whose bvigor is gone?
3 Through want and hard hunger
they agnaw bthe dry ground by night in cwaste and desolation;
4 they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes,
and the roots of the broom tree for their food.
5 aThey are driven out from human company;
they shout after them as after a thief.
6 In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell,
in holes of the earth and of athe rocks.
7 Among the bushes they abray;
under bthe nettles they huddle together.
8 A senseless, a nameless brood,
they have been whipped out of the land.
9 “And now I have become their asong;
I am ba byword to them.
10 They aabhor me; they keep aloof from me;
they do not hesitate to bspit at the sight of me.
11 Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,
they have cast off restraint in my presence.
12 On my aright hand the rabble rise;
they push away my feet;
they bcast up against me their ways of destruction.
13 They break up my path;
they promote my acalamity;
they need no one to help them.
14 As through a wide abreach they come;
amid the crash they roll on.
15 aTerrors are turned upon me;
my honor is pursued as by the wind,
and my prosperity has passed away like ba cloud.
16 “And now my soul is apoured out within me;
days of affliction have taken hold of me.
17 aThe night bracks my bones,
and the pain that cgnaws me takes no rest.
18 With great force my garment is adisfigured;
it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
19 God has cast me into the mire,
and I have become like adust and ashes.
20 I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
I stand, and you only look at me.
21 You have aturned cruel to me;
with the might of your hand you bpersecute me.
22 aYou lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it,
and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
23 aFor I know that you will bring me to death
and to the house appointed for ball living.
24 “Yet does not one in a aheap of ruins stretch out his hand,
and in his disaster cry for help?
25 Did not I aweep for him whose day was hard?
Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
26 But awhen I hoped for good, evil came,
and when I waited for light, bdarkness came.
27 My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;
days of affliction acome to meet me.
28 I ago about darkened, but not by the sun;
I stand up in bthe assembly and cry for help.
29 I am a brother of ajackals
and a companion of bostriches.
30 My askin turns black and falls from me,
and my bbones burn with heat.
31 My alyre is bturned to mourning,
and my apipe to the voice of those who weep.