My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.

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

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their food.

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

And now I am their song, yes, I am their by-word.

I cry to thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not.

Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud.

Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was not my soul grieved for the poor?

For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.

They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.

Yes, to what might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age had perished?

They were children of fools, yes, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.

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

Thou hast become cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me.

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

Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me.

I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.

Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.

My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.

Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were collected.

To dwell in the clefts of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.

Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride upon it, and dissolvest my substance.

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

My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction came upon me.

They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.

They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them, as after a thief;)

By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.

Yet he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction.

They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.