Study Desk

"But now those who are younger than I mock me, Whose fathers I refused to put with the dogs of my flock.

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

"Indeed, what good was the strength of their hands to me? Vigor had perished from them.

Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished?

"From poverty and famine they are gaunt, They who gnaw at the dry ground by night in waste and desolation,

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

Who pluck saltweed by the bushes, And whose food is the root of the broom shrub.

Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.

"They are driven from the community; They shout against them as against a thief,

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

So that they live on the slopes of ravines, In holes in the ground and among the rocks.

To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.

"Among the bushes they cry out; Under the weeds they are gathered together.

Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.

"Worthless fellows, even those without a name, They were cast out from the land.

They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.

"And now I have become their taunt, And I have become a byword to them.

And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.

"They loathe me and stand aloof from me, And they do not refrain from spitting in my face.

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

"Because He has undone my bowstring and afflicted me, They have cast off the bridle before me.

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

"On the right hand their mob arises; They push aside my feet and pile up their ways of destruction against me.

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

"They break up my path, They promote my destruction; No one restrains them.

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

"As through a wide gap they come, Amid the storm they roll on.

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

"Sudden terrors are turned upon me; They chase away my dignity like the wind, And my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.

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