1  ^u“But now they laugh at me,

men who are ^vyounger than I,

whose fathers I would have disdained

to 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 hunger

they 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.¹

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 ^wnettles they huddle together.

8  A senseless, a nameless brood,

they have been whipped out of the land.

9  “And now I have become their ^xsong;

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 ^ycord and humbled me,

they have cast off restraint² 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.

14  As through a wide breach they come;

amid the crash they roll on.

15  Terrors are turned upon me;

my honor is pursued as by the wind,

and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.