17. Night pierces my bones within me; my gnawing pains never rest.
18. By great power He seizes my garment; He binds me like the collar of my tunic.
19. He has cast me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.
20. “I cry out to You, but You do not answer me; I stand up, but You only look at me.
21. You have turned on me cruelly; You attack me with the might of Your hand.
22. You lift me up on the wind and make me ride on it; You toss me about in the storm.
23. For I know that you will bring me to death, to the house appointed for all the living.
24. Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out His hand, and in his distress cry for help?
25. Have I not wept for the unfortunate? Was not my soul grieved for the poor?
26. Yet, when I hoped for good, evil came; when I waited for light, then darkness came.
27. “My heart seethes and never stops; days of suffering confront me.
28. I walk about blackened, but not by the sun; I stand in the assembly and cry for help.
29. I have become a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.