WeBible

1 - But now [they that are] younger than I, have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

2 - Yes, to what [might] the strength of their hands [profit] me, in whom old age had perished?

3 - For want and famine [they were] solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.

4 - Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots [for] their food.

5 - They were driven forth from among [men], (they cried after them, as [after] a thief;)

6 - To dwell in the clefts of the valleys, [in] caves of the earth, and [in] the rocks.

7 - Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were collected.

8 - [They were] children of fools, yes, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.

9 - And now I am their song, yes, I am their by-word.

10 - They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.

11 - Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me.

12 - Upon [my] right [hand] rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.

13 - They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.

14 - They came [upon me] as a wide breaking in [of waters]: in the desolation they rolled themselves [upon me].

15 - Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud.

16 - And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

17 - My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.

18 - By the great force [of my disease] is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.

19 - He hath cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

20 - I cry to thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me [not].

21 - Thou hast become cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me.

22 - Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride [upon it], and dissolvest my substance.

23 - For I know [that] thou wilt bring me [to] death, and [to] the house appointed for all living.

24 - Yet he will not stretch out [his] hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction.

25 - Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was [not] my soul grieved for the poor?

26 - When I looked for good, then evil came: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.

27 - My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction came upon me.

28 - I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, [and] I cried in the congregation.

29 - I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

30 - My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

31 - My harp also is [turned] to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.