My heart has been struck like grass and has withered, Indeed, I forget to eat my bread.
The elders of his household stood beside him in order to help him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
Then Ezra rose from before the house of God and went into the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. Although he went there, he did not eat bread nor drink water, because he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles.
“I am disgusted with my own life; I will express my complaint freely; 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, food that he should crave.
“For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, My spirit drinks their poison; The terrors of God line up against me.
My days are like a lengthened shadow, And I wither away like grass.
For I have eaten ashes like bread, And mixed my drink with weeping
For they will wither quickly like the grass, And decay like the green plants.
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.
¶Disgrace has broken my heart, and I am so sick. And I waited for sympathy, but there was none; And for comforters, but I found none.
When I remember God, then I am restless; When I sigh, then my spirit feels weak. Selah
The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the Lord blows upon it; The people are indeed grass!
He made the arrows of His quiver Enter my inward parts.
My soul certainly remembers, And is bent over within me.
And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.