MOCKED BY THE HOMELESS

“But now they mock me,
    men younger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained
    to put with my sheep dogs.
² Of what use was the strength of their hands to me,
    since their vigor had gone from them?
³ Haggard from want and hunger,
    they roamed^[a] the parched land
    in desolate wastelands at night.
⁴ In the brush they gathered salt herbs,
    and their food^[b] was the root of the broom bush.
⁵ They were banished from human society,
    shouted at as if they were thieves.
⁶ They were forced to live in the dry stream beds,
    among the rocks and in holes in the ground.
⁷ They brayed among the bushes
    and huddled in the undergrowth.
⁸ A base and nameless brood,
    they were driven out of the land.

⁹ “And now those young men mock me in song;
    I have become a byword among them.
¹⁰ They detest me and keep their distance;
    they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
¹¹ Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me,
    they throw off restraint in my presence.
¹² On my right the tribe^[c] attacks;
    they lay snares for my feet,
    they build their siege ramps against me.
¹³ They break up my road;
    they succeed in destroying me.
    ‘No one can help him,’ they say.
¹⁴ They advance as through a gaping breach;
    amid the ruins they come rolling in.
¹⁵ Terrors overwhelm me;
    my dignity is driven away as by the wind,
    my safety vanishes like a cloud.

¹⁶ “And now my life ebbs away;
    days of suffering grip me.
¹⁷ Night pierces my bones;
    my gnawing pains never rest.
¹⁸ In his great power God becomes like clothing to me^[d];
    he binds me like the neck of my garment.
¹⁹ He throws me into the mud,
    and I am reduced to dust and ashes.

²⁰ “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer;
    I stand up, but you merely look at me.
²¹ You turn on me ruthlessly;
    with the might of your hand you attack me.
²² You snatch me up and drive me before the wind;
    you toss me about in the storm.
²³ I know you will bring me down to death,
    to the place appointed for all the living.

²⁴ “Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man
    when he cries for help in his distress.
²⁵ Have I not wept for those in trouble?
    Has not my soul grieved for the poor?
²⁶ Yet when I hoped for good, evil came;
    when I looked for light, then came darkness.
²⁷ The churning inside me never stops;
    days of suffering confront me.
²⁸ I go about blackened, but not by the sun;
    I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
²⁹ I have become a brother of jackals,
    a companion of owls.
³⁰ My skin grows black and peels;
    my body burns with fever.
³¹ My lyre is tuned to mourning,
    and my pipe to the sound of wailing.