my harp is turned to sorrow, and my pipe to weeping.

But now, they that are mine inferiors and younger than I, have me in derision; yea even they, whose fathers I would have thought scorn to have set with the dogs of my cattle.

But now I am a companion of dragons, and a fellow of ostriches.

My skin upon me is turned to black, and my bones are burnt with heat;

plucking up herbs from among the bushes, and the Juniper's root was their meat.

Sure I am, that thou wilt deliver me unto death: whereas a lodging is prepared for all men living.

Now am I their song, and am become their jesting stock;

When I cry unto thee, thou doest not hear me: and though I stand before thee, yet thou regardest me not.

"Fearfulness is turned against me. Mine honour vanisheth away more swiftly than wind, and my prosperity departeth hence like as it were a cloud.

Did not I weep in the time of trouble? Had not my soul compassion upon the poor?

For very misery and hunger, they went about in the wilderness like wretches and beggars,

they abhor me, they flee far from me, and stain my face with spittle,

The power and strength of their hands might do me no good, and as for their age, it is spent and past away without any profit.

They were children of fools and villains, which are dead away from the world.

Therefore is my mind poured full of heaviness, and the days of trouble have taken hold upon me.

Thou art become mine enemy, and with thy violent hand thou takest part against me.

Yet nevertheless, whereas I looked for good, evil happened unto me; and whereas I waited for light, there came darkness.

for the LORD hath opened his quiver: he hath hit me, and put a bridle in my mouth.

Meekly and lowly came I in, yea and without any displeasure; I stood up in the congregation, and communed with them.

Upon my right hand they rose together against me; they have hurt my feet, made a way to destroy me,

My bones are pierced through in the night season, and my sinews take no rest.

Upon the dry heath went they about crying, and under the thorns they gathered themselves together.

Their dwelling was beside foul brooks, yea in the caves and dens of the earth.

In times past thou didst set me up on high, as it were above the wind, but now hast thou given me a very sore fall.

I am even as it were clay, and am become like ashes and dust.

My bowels seeth within me, and take no rest, for the days of my trouble are come upon me.

and my path have they clean marred. It was so easy for them to do me harm, that they needed no man to help them.

And when they were driven forth, men cried after them, as it had been after a thief.

With all their power have they changed my garment, and girded me therewith, as it were with a coat.

Now use not men to do violence unto them, that are destroyed already; but where hurt is done, there use they to help.

They fell upon me, as it had been the breaking in of waters, and came in by heaps to destroy me.