1. “But now they laugh at me,men who are younger than I,whose fathers I would have disdainedto set with the dogs of my flock.
2. What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone?
3. Through want and hard hungerthey gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;
4. they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes,and the roots of the broom tree for their food.
5. They are driven out from human company;they shout after them as after a thief.
6. In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell,in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
7. Among the bushes they bray;under the nettles they huddle together.
8. A senseless, a nameless brood,they have been whipped out of the land.
9. “And now I have become their song;I am a byword to them.
10. They abhor me; they keep aloof from me;they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.
11. Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,they have cast off restraint in my presence.
12. On my right hand the rabble rise;they push away my feet;they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
13. They break up my path;they promote my calamity;they need no one to help them.