1. “But now they laugh at me, those younger than I, whose fathers I would have refused to put with my sheep dogs.
2. Of what use to me is the strength of their hands, since their manhood power has perished?
3. They are dried up from lack and hunger, they flee to a parched land, formerly a waste and ruin.
4. They pluck salt herbs by the bushes, and broom tree roots for their food.
5. They were driven out from among men, they shouted at them as at a thief,
6. to dwell in the gullies of wadis, holes of the ground and clefts.
7. Among the bushes they cry out, under the nettles they huddled together –
8. sons of fools, even sons without a name, they have been whipped out of the land.
9. And now I have become their song, and I am a byword to them.
10. They have loathed me, they have kept far from me, and did not refrain from spitting in my face.
11. Because He has loosed my bowstring and afflicted me, they have thrown off restraint in my presence.
12. At my right hand a brood rises; they pushed away my feet, and they raise up against me their destructive ways.