- 1
- But now those who are younger than I make sport of me;
those whose fathers I would not have put with the dogs of my flocks.
- 2
- Of what use is the strength of their hands to me?
all force is gone from them.
- 3
- They are wasted for need of food, biting the dry earth;
their only hope of life is in the waste land.
- 4
- They are pulling off the salt leaves from the brushwood, and making a meal of roots.
- 5
- They are sent out from among their townsmen, men are crying after them as thieves
- 6
- They have to get a resting-place in the hollows of the valleys, in holes of the earth and rocks.
- 7
- They make noises like asses among the brushwood;
they get together under the thorns.
- 8
- They are sons of shame, and of men without a name, who have been forced out of the land.
- 9
- And now I have become their song, and I am a word of shame to them.
- 10
- I am disgusting to them;
they keep away from me, and put marks of shame on me.
- 11
- For he has made loose the cord of my bow, and put me to shame;
he has sent down my flag to the earth before me.
- 12
- The lines of his men of war put themselves in order, and make high their ways of destruction against me:
- 13
- They have made waste my roads, with a view to my destruction;
his bowmen come round about me;
- 14
- As through a wide broken place in the wall they come on, I am overturned by the shock of their attack.
- 15
- Fears have come on me;
my hope is gone like the wind, and my well-being like a cloud.
- 16
- But now my soul is turned to water in me, days of trouble overtake me:
- 17
- The flesh is gone from my bones, and they give me no rest;
there is no end to my pains.
- 18
- With great force he takes a grip of my clothing, pulling me by the neck of my coat.
- 19
- Truly God has made me low, even to the earth, and I have become like dust.
- 20
- You give no answer to my cry, and take no note of my prayer.
- 21
- You have become cruel to me;
the strength of your hand is hard on me.
- 22
- Lifting me up, you make me go on the wings of the wind;
I am broken up by the storm.
- 23
- For I am certain that you will send me back to death, and to the meeting-place ordered for all living.
- 24
- Has not my hand been stretched out in help to the poor?
have I not been a saviour to him in his trouble?
- 25
- Have I not been weeping for the crushed?
and was not my soul sad for him who was in need?
- 26
- For I was looking for good, and evil came;
I was waiting for light, and it became dark.
- 27
- My feelings are strongly moved, and give me no rest;
days of trouble have overtaken me.
- 28
- I go about in dark clothing, uncomforted;
I get up in the public place, crying out for help.
- 29
- I have become a brother to the jackals, and go about in the company of ostriches.
- 30
- My skin is black and dropping off me;
and my bones are burning with the heat of my disease.
- 31
- And my music has been turned to sorrow, and the sound of my pipe into the noise of weeping.
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