1"But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

2What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone?

3Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;

4they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes, and the roots of the broom tree for their food.

5They are driven out from human company; they shout after them as after a thief.

6In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

7Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together.

8A 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.

10They abhor me; they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.

11Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

12On my right hand the rabble rise; they push away my feet; they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

13They break up my path; they promote my calamity; they need no one to help them.

14As through a wide breach they come; amid the crash they roll on.

15Terrors are turned upon me; my honor is pursued as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.