My heart has been stricken like grass and it has dried up, Indeed, I forget to eat my bread.
And the elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
Then Ezra arose from before the house of God and went into the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. He went there, but he did not eat bread nor drink water, for he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles.
“My soul is loathed by my life; I will abandon all restraint in myself to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
“My skin turns black on me, And my bones burn with fever.
So that his life loathes bread, And his soul favorite food.
“For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, Their poison my spirit drinks; The horrors of God are arranged against me.
My days are like an outstretched shadow, And as for me, I dry up like grass.
For I have eaten ashes like bread And mixed my drinks with weeping
For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb.
O my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
¶Reproach has broken my heart and I am so sick. And I hoped for sympathy, but there was none, And for comforters, but I found none.
I remember God and I am disturbed; I muse and my spirit faints. Selah.
The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of Yahweh blows upon it; Surely the people are grass.
He made the arrows of His quiver To enter into my inward parts.
Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me.
And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.