Dual Panel1But now I am laughed to scorn by men of a younger generation, men whose fathers I would have disdained to put with the dogs guarding my flock.
2What use to me was the strength of their arms, since their vigour had wasted away?
3Gaunt with want and hunger, they gnawed roots in the desert,
4they plucked saltwort and wormwood and for warmth the root of broom.
5Driven out from human society, pursued like thieves with hue and cry,
6they made their homes in gullies and ravines, in holes in the ground and rocky clefts;
7they howled like beasts among the bushes, huddled together beneath the scrub,
8vile, disreputable wretches, outcasts from the haunts of men.
9Now I have become the target of their taunts; my name is a byword among them.
10They abhor me, they shun me, they dare to spit in my face.
11They run wild and savage me; at sight of me they throw off all restraint.
12On my right flank they attack in a mob; they raise their siege-ramps against me;
13to destroy me they tear down my crumbling defences, and scramble up against me unhindered;
14they burst in as through a gaping breach; at the moment of the crash they come in waves.
15Terror after terror overwhelms me; my noble designs are swept away as by the wind, and my hope of deliverance vanishes like a cloud.
16So now my life ebbs away; misery has me daily in its grip.
17By night pain pierces my very bones, and there is ceaseless throbbing in my veins;
18my garments are all bespattered with my phlegm, which chokes me like the collar of a garment.
19God himself has flung me down in the mud; I have become no better than dust or ashes.
20I call out to you, God, but you do not answer, I stand up to plead, but you keep aloof.
21You have turned cruelly against me; with your strong hand you persecute me.
22You snatch me up and mount me on the wind; the tempest tosses me about.
23I know that you will hand me over to death, to the place appointed for all mortals.
24Yet no beggar held out his hand to me in vain for relief in his distress.
25Did I not weep for the unfortunate? Did not my heart grieve for the destitute?
26Yet evil has come though I expected good, and when I looked for light, darkness came.
27My bowels are in ferment and know no peace; days of misery stretch out in front of me.
28I go about dejected and comfortless; I rise in the assembly, only to appeal for help.
29The wolf is now my brother, the desert-owls have become my companions.
30My blackened skin peels off, and my body is scorched by the heat.
31My lyre has been tuned for a dirge, my flute to the sound of weeping.