My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread.
The elders of his house arose beside him, to raise him up from the earth; but he would not, and he didn’t eat bread with them.
Then Ezra rose up from before God’s house, and went into the room of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. When he came there, he didn’t eat bread or drink water, for he mourned because of the trespass of the exiles.
“My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burnt with heat.
so that his life abhors bread, and his soul dainty food.
For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass.
For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears,
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither like the green herb.
My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar.
Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.
I remember God, and I groan. I complain, and my spirit is overwhelmed. Selah.
The grass withers, the flower fades, because the LORD’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are like grass.
He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
He was without sight for three days, and neither ate nor drank.