² “How I long for the months gone by,
    for the days when God watched over me,
³ when his lamp shone on my head
    and by his light I walked through darkness!
⁴ Oh, for the days when I was in my prime,
    when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house,
⁵ when the Almighty was still with me
    and my children were around me,
⁶ when my path was drenched with cream
    and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.

⁷ “When I went to the gate of the city
    and took my seat in the public square,
⁸ the young men saw me and stepped aside
    and the old men rose to their feet;
⁹ the chief men refrained from speaking
    and covered their mouths with their hands;
¹⁰ the voices of the nobles were hushed,
    and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.
¹¹ Whoever heard me spoke well of me,
    and those who saw me commended me,
¹² because I rescued the poor who cried for help,
    and the fatherless who had none to assist them.
¹³ The one who was dying blessed me;
    I made the widow’s heart sing.
¹⁴ I put on righteousness as my clothing;
    justice was my robe and my turban.
¹⁵ I was eyes to the blind
    and feet to the lame.
¹⁶ I was a father to the needy;
    I took up the case of the stranger.
¹⁷ I broke the fangs of the wicked
    and snatched the victims from their teeth.

¹⁸ “I thought, ‘I will die in my own house,
    my days as numerous as the grains of sand.
¹⁹ My roots will reach to the water,
    and the dew will lie all night on my branches.
²⁰ My glory will not fade;
    the bow will be ever new in my hand.’

²¹ “People listened to me expectantly,
    waiting in silence for my counsel.
²² After I had spoken, they spoke no more;
    my words fell gently on their ears.
²³ They waited for me as for showers
    and drank in my words as the spring rain.
²⁴ When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it;
    the light of my face was precious to them.^[a]
25 I chose the way for them and sat as their chief;
    I dwelt as a king among his troops;
    I was like one who comforts mourners.

30 “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^[b] the parched land
    in desolate wastelands at night.
⁴ In the brush they gathered salt herbs,
    and their food^[c] 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^[d] 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.