My lyre is turned to mourning, and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.

"But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

I am a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches.

My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.

they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes, and the roots of the broom tree for their food.

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

"And now I have become their song; I am a byword to them.

I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.

Terrors are turned upon me; my honor is pursued as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.

Did not I weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;

They abhor me; they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.

What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone?

A senseless, a nameless brood, they have been whipped out of the land.

"And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me.

You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me.

But when I hoped for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came.

Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

I go about darkened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

On my right hand the rabble rise; they push away my feet; they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together.

In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.

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

My inward parts are in turmoil and never still; days of affliction come to meet me.

They break up my path; they promote my calamity; they need no one to help them.

They are driven out from human company; they shout after them as after a thief.

With great force my garment is disfigured; it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.

"Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, and in his disaster cry for help?

As through a wide breach they come; amid the crash they roll on.