~~~~~~1~~~~~ ~~~~~~1~~~~~ ~~~~~~1~~~~~ ~~~~~~1~~~~~ ~~~~~~1~~~~~ How lonely sits the city That was great with people! She has become like a widow Who was once great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces Has become a forced laborer! She weeps bitterly in the night, And her tears are on her cheeks; She has none to comfort her Among all her lovers. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; They have become her enemies. Judah has gone into exile because of affliction And because of great slavery; She sits among the nations, But she has found no rest; All her pursuers have overtaken her In the midst of distress. The roads of Zion are in mourning Because no one comes to the appointed times. All her gates are desolate; Her priests are sighing, Her virgins are grieving, And she herself is bitter. Her adversaries have become her masters; Her enemies are complacent; For Yahweh has caused her grief Because of the greatness of her transgressions; Her infants have gone away As captives before the adversary. So all her majesty Has gone out from the daughter of Zion; Her princes have become like deer That have found no pasture; So they have fled without strength Before the pursuer. In the days of her affliction and homelessness Jerusalem remembers all her precious things That were from the days of old, When her people fell into the hand of the adversary And no one helped her. The adversaries saw her; They laughed at her ruin. Jerusalem sinned greatly; Therefore she has become an impure thing. All who honored her despise her Because they have seen her nakedness; Even she herself sighs and turns away. Her uncleanness was in her skirts; She did not remember her future. Therefore she has gone down astonishingly; She has no comforter. “See, O Yahweh, my affliction, For the enemy has magnified himself!” The adversary has stretched out his hand Over all her desirable things, For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, The ones whom You commanded That they should not enter into Your assembly. All her people are sighing, seeking bread; They have given their desirable things for food To restore their souls. “See, O Yahweh, and look, For I am despised.” “Is it nothing to all you who pass this way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain Which was dealt severely to me, Which Yahweh grieved me with on the day of His burning anger. “From on high He sent fire into my bones, And it dominated them. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back; He has made me desolate, Faint all day long. “The yoke of my transgressions is bound; By His hand they are knit together. They have come upon my neck; He has made my strength stumble. The Lord has given me into the hands Of those against whom I am not able to stand. “The Lord has rejected all my mighty men In my midst; He has called an appointed time against me To break my young men; The Lord has trodden as in a wine press The virgin daughter of Judah. “For these things I am weeping; My eyes run down with water; Because far from me is a comforter, One who restores my soul. My children are desolate Because the enemy has prevailed.” Zion stretches out her hands; There is no one to comfort her; Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob That the ones round about him should be his adversaries; Jerusalem has become an impure thing among them. “Yahweh is righteous; For I have rebelled against His command; Hear now, all peoples, And behold my pain; My virgins and my young men Have gone into captivity. “I called to my lovers, but they deceived me; My priests and my elders breathed their last in the city While they sought food for themselves in order to restore their souls. “See, O Yahweh, for I am in distress; My inmost being is greatly disturbed; My heart is overturned within me, For I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; In the house it is like death. “They have heard that I am sighing; There is no one to comfort me; All my enemies have heard of the evil done to me; They rejoice that You have done it. You have brought the day which You have proclaimed, So that they will become like me. “Let all their evil come before You; And deal severely with them as You have dealt severely with me For all my transgressions; For my groans are great and my heart is faint.”

~~~~~~2~~~~~ ~~~~~~2~~~~~ ~~~~~~2~~~~~ ~~~~~~2~~~~~ ~~~~~~2~~~~~ How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion With a cloud in His anger! He has cast from heaven to earth The beauty of Israel, And has not remembered the footstool of His feet In the day of His anger. The Lord has swallowed up; He has not spared All the habitations of Jacob. In His wrath He has pulled down The strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes. In hot anger He has cut in pieces All the strength of Israel; He has turned back His right hand From before the enemy. And He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire Devouring round about. He has bent His bow like an enemy; He has set His right hand like an adversary And killed all that were desirable to the eye; In the tent of the daughter of Zion He has poured out His wrath like fire. The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces; He has brought its strongholds to ruin And multiplied in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning. And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has brought His appointed meeting place to ruin. Yahweh has caused to be forgotten The appointed time and sabbath in Zion, And He has spurned king and priest In the indignation of His anger. The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered into the hand of the enemy The walls of her palaces. They have made a noise in the house of Yahweh As in the day of an appointed time. Yahweh determined to bring to ruin The wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line; He has not turned His hand back from swallowing up, And He has caused rampart and wall to mourn; They have languished together. Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; The law is no more. Also, her prophets find No vision from Yahweh. The elders of the daughter of Zion Sit on the ground; they are silent. They have thrown dust up on their heads; They have girded themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem Have bowed their heads down to the ground. My eyes fail because of tears; My inmost being is greatly disturbed; My heart is poured out on the earth Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, When infants and nursing babies faint In the open squares of the city. They say to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” As they faint like a wounded man In the open squares of the city, As their life is poured out On their mothers’ bosom. What shall I testify about you? To what shall I equate you, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what shall I liken you as I comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your destruction is as vast as the sea; Who can heal you? Your prophets have beheld for you Worthless and ineffective visions; And they have not uncovered your iniquity So as to return you from captivity, But they have beheld for you worthless and misleading oracles. All who pass along the way Clap their hands in derision at you; They hiss and shake their heads At the daughter of Jerusalem, “Is this the city of which they said, ‘The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth’?” All your enemies Have opened their mouths wide against you; They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day for which we have hoped; We have found it, we have seen it.” Yahweh has done what He purposed; He has completed His word Which He commanded from days of old. He has pulled down without sparing, And He has caused the enemy to be glad over you; He has exalted the might of your adversaries. Their heart cried out to the Lord, “O wall of the daughter of Zion, Let your tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no relief; Let your eyes not be still. “Arise, cry aloud in the night At the head of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water Before the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to Him For the life of your infants Who are faint because of hunger At the head of every street.” See, O Yahweh, and look! With whom have You dealt thus? Should women eat their offspring, The infants who were born healthy? Should priest and prophet be killed In the sanctuary of the Lord? On the ground in the streets Lie young and old; My virgins and my young men Have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered, not sparing. You called as in the day of an appointed time My terrors on every side; And there was no one who escaped or survived In the day of Yahweh’s anger. Those whom I gave birth to and reared, My enemy consumed them.

~~~~~~3~~~~~ ~~~~~~3~~~~~ ~~~~~~3~~~~~ ~~~~~~3~~~~~ ~~~~~~3~~~~~ I am the man who has seen affliction Because of the rod of His wrath. He has driven me and made me walk In darkness and not in light. Surely against me He has turned His hand Repeatedly all the day. He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away; He has broken my bones. He has besieged and encompassed me with gall and hardship. Dark places He has made me inhabit, Like those who have long been dead. He has walled me in so that I cannot go out; He has made my chain heavy. Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with cut stone; He has made my paths crooked. He is to me like a bear lying in wait, Like a lion in secret places. He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces; He has made me desolate. He bent His bow And set me as a target for the arrow. He made the arrows of His quiver To enter into my inward parts. I have become a laughingstock to all my people, Their music of mockery all the day. He has saturated me with bitterness; He has sated me with wormwood. He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust. My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten goodness. So I say, “My strength has perished, As well as my hopeful waiting which comes from Yahweh.” Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and gall. Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me. This I will return to my heart; Therefore I will wait in hope. The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I wait for Him.” Yahweh is good to those who hope in Him, To the soul who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of Yahweh. It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust; Perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him; Let him be saturated with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness. For He does not afflict from His heart Or grieve the sons of men. To crush under His feet All the prisoners of the land, To deprive a man of justice In the presence of the Most High, To defraud a man in his legal case— These things the Lord does not see with approval. Who is there who speaks and it happens, Unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High That both calamities and good go forth? Why should any living person or any man Complain because of his sins? Let us search out and examine our ways, And let us return to Yahweh. We lift up our heart to our hands Toward God in heaven; We have transgressed and rebelled; You have not pardoned. You have covered Yourself with anger And pursued us; You have killed and have not spared. You have covered Yourself with a cloud So that no prayer can pass through. You have made us mere scum and refuse In the midst of the peoples. All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. Panic and pitfall have befallen us, Devastation and destruction; My eyes run down with streams of water Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people. My eyes pour down unceasingly, Without stopping, Until Yahweh looks down And sees from heaven. My eyes deal severely with my soul Because of all the daughters of my city. My enemies without cause Hunted me down like a bird; They have silenced my life in the pit And have placed a stone on me. Waters flowed over my head; I said, “I am cut off!” I called on Your name, O Yahweh, Out of the lowest pit. You have heard my voice, “Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief, From my cry for help.” You drew near when I called on You; You said, “Do not fear!” O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause; You have redeemed my life. O Yahweh, You have seen my oppression; Judge my case. You have seen all their vengeance, All their purposes against me. You have heard their reproach, O Yahweh, All their purposes against me. The lips of those who rise against me and their whispering Are against me all day long. Look on their sitting and their rising; I am their mocking song. You will recompense them, O Yahweh, According to the work of their hands. You will give them dullness of heart; Your curse will be on them. You will pursue them in anger and destroy them From under the heavens of Yahweh!

~~~~~~4~~~~~ ~~~~~~4~~~~~ ~~~~~~4~~~~~ ~~~~~~4~~~~~ ~~~~~~4~~~~~ How dark the gold has become, How the pure gold has changed! The sacred stones are poured out At the head of every street. The precious sons of Zion, Weighed against fine gold, How they are regarded as earthen jars, The work of a potter’s hands! Even jackals offer the breast; They nurse their young; But the daughter of my people has become cruel Like ostriches in the wilderness. The tongue of the nursing baby cleaves To the roof of its mouth because of thirst; The infants ask for bread, But no one breaks it for them. Those who ate delicacies Are desolate in the streets; Those reared in crimson Embrace ash pits. So the iniquity of the daughter of my people Is greater than the sin of Sodom, Which was overthrown as in a moment, And no hands whirled toward her. Her Nazirites were purer than snow; They were whiter than milk; They were more ruddy in body than corals, Their polishing was like lapis lazuli. Their form is blacker than soot; They are not recognized in the streets; Their skin is shriveled on their bones; It is withered, it has become like wood. Better are those pierced through with the sword Than those pierced through with hunger; For their life flows away, being stricken For lack of the produce of the field. The hands of compassionate women Boiled their own children; They became food for them Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people. Yahweh has spent His wrath; He has poured out His burning anger; And He has kindled a fire in Zion Which has devoured its foundations. The kings of the earth did not believe, Nor did any of the inhabitants of the world, That the adversary and the enemy Could enter the gates of Jerusalem. Because of the sins of her prophets And the iniquities of her priests, Who have shed in her midst The blood of the righteous; They wandered, blind, in the streets; They were defiled with blood So that no one could touch their garments. “Depart! Unclean!” they cried of themselves. “Depart, depart, do not touch!” So they fled and wandered; Men among the nations said, “They shall not continue to sojourn with us.” The presence of Yahweh has eradicated them; He will not continue to look at them; They did not honor the priests; They did not favor the elders. Yet our eyes were spent, Looking for help was vanity; In our watching we have watched For a nation that could not save. They hunted our steps So that we could not walk in our open squares; Our end drew near, Our days were finished, For our end had come. Our pursuers were swifter Than the eagles of the sky; They hotly pursued us on the mountains; They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, Was captured in their pits, Of whom we had said, “Under his shadow We shall live among the nations.” Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, Who inhabits the land of Uz; But the cup will pass on to you as well; You will become drunk and make yourself naked. The punishment of your iniquity has come to an end, O daughter of Zion; He will exile you no longer. But He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins!

~~~~~~5~~~~~ ~~~~~~5~~~~~ ~~~~~~5~~~~~ ~~~~~~5~~~~~ ~~~~~~5~~~~~ Remember, O Yahweh, what has happened to us; Look, and see our reproach! Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, Our houses to foreigners. We have become orphans without a father; Our mothers are like widows. We drink our water by means of silver; Our wood comes to us at a price. Our pursuers are at our necks; We are worn out; there is no rest for us. We have given over our hands to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread. Our fathers sinned; they are no more; It is we who have borne their iniquities. Slaves rule over us; There is no one to tear us away from their hand. We get our bread at the risk of our lives Because of the sword in the wilderness. Our skin has become as hot as an oven Because of the burning heat of famine. They violated the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah. Princes were hung by their hands; Elders were not respected. Young men lifted up the stone at the grinding mill, And youths stumbled down under loads of wood. Elders have ceased from being at the gate, Young men from their music. The joy of our hearts has ceased; Our dancing has been turned into mourning. The crown has fallen from our head; Woe to us, for we have sinned! Because of this our heart is faint; Because of these things our eyes are dim; Because of Mount Zion which lies desolate, Foxes walk about in it. You, O Yahweh, sit enthroned forever; Your throne is from generation to generation. Why do You forget us forever? Why do You forsake us so long? Cause us to return to You, O Yahweh, that we may be returned; Renew our days as of old, Even if You have utterly rejected us And are exceedingly angry with us.
