Therefore my harp has [turned] to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.

But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.

My skin is black, [and falls] from me. And my bones are burned with heat.

They pluck mallows by the bushes, and the roots of the juniper are their food.

For I know that thou will bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

And now I have become their song, Yea, I am a byword to them.

I cry to thee, and thou do not answer me. I stand up, and thou gaze at me.

Terrors are turned upon me. They chase my honor as the wind, and my welfare is passed away as a cloud.

Did I not weep for him who was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

They are gaunt with want and famine. They gnaw the dry ground in the gloom of waste and desolation.

They abhor me. They stand aloof from me, and do not spare to spit in my face.

Yea, the strength of their hands, to what should it profit me? Men in whom ripe age is perished.

[They are] sons of fools, yea, sons of base men. They were scourged out of the land.

And now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

Thou have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of thy hand thou persecute me.

When I looked for good, then evil came. And when I waited for light, there came darkness.

For he has loosed his cord, and afflicted me. And they have cast off the bridle before me.

I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.

Upon my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet, and they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the [pains] that gnaw me take no rest.

Among the bushes they bray, under the nettles they are gathered together.

so that they dwell in frightful valleys, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

Thou lift me up to the wind. Thou cause me to ride [upon it], and thou disintegrate me in the storm.

He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

My heart is troubled, and does not rest. Days of affliction have come upon me.

They mar my path. They set forward my calamity, [even] men who have no helper.

They are driven forth from the midst [of men]. They cry out after them as after a thief,

By the great force my garment is disfigured. It binds me about as the collar of my coat.

However does not a man stretch out the hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?

As through a wide breach they come. In the midst of the ruin they roll themselves [upon me].