Unto me [men] gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel.
After my words they spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them.
And they waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide [as] for the latter rain.
[If] I laughed on them, they believed [it] not; and the light of my countenance they cast not down.
I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one [that] comforteth the mourners.
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.
Yea, whereto [might] the strength of their hands [profit] me, in whom old age was perished?
For want and famine [they were] solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.
Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots [for] their meat.
They were driven forth from among [men], (they cried after them as [after] a thief;)
