Skip to content- 1Verse 1. “But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to entrust with my sheep dogs.
- 2Verse 2. What use to me was the strength of their hands, since their vigor had left them?
- 3Verse 3. Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night.
- 4Verse 4. They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food.
- 5Verse 5. They were banished from among men, shouted down like thieves,
- 6Verse 6. so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.
- 7Verse 7. They cried out among the shrubs and huddled beneath the nettles.
- 8Verse 8. A senseless and nameless brood, they were driven off the land.
- 9Verse 9. And now they mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.
- 10Verse 10. They abhor me and keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
- 11Verse 11. Because God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.
- 12Verse 12. The rabble arises at my right; they lay snares for my feet and build siege ramps against me.
- 13Verse 13. They tear up my path; they profit from my destruction, with no one to restrain them.
- 14Verse 14. They advance as through a wide breach; through the ruins they keep rolling in.
- 15Verse 15. Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.
- 16Verse 16. And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction grip me.
- 17Verse 17. Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.
- 18Verse 18. With great force He grasps my garment; He seizes me by the collar of my tunic.
- 19Verse 19. He throws me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.
- 20Verse 20. I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer; when I stand up, You merely look at me.
- 21Verse 21. You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand.
- 22Verse 22. You snatch me up into the wind and drive me before it; You toss me about in the storm.
- 23Verse 23. Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.
- 24Verse 24. Yet no one stretches out his hand to a ruined man when he cries for help in his distress.
- 25Verse 25. Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has my soul not grieved for the needy?
- 26Verse 26. But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell.
- 27Verse 27. I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me.
- 28Verse 28. I go about blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
- 29Verse 29. I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of ostriches.
- 30Verse 30. My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.
- 31Verse 31. My harp is tuned to mourning and my flute to the sound of weeping.