Lamentations 1:1–3:36
1 How lonely sits the city
That was full of people!
aHow like a widow is she,
Who was great among the nations!
The bprincess among the provinces
Has become a 1slave!
2 She cweeps bitterly in the dnight,
Her tears are on her cheeks;
Among all her lovers
She has none to comfort her.
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
They have become her enemies.
3 eJudah has gone into captivity,
Under affliction and hard servitude;
fShe dwells among the 2nations,
She finds no grest;
All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.
Because no one comes to the 3set feasts.
All her gates are hdesolate;
Her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted,
And she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries ihave become 4the master,
Her enemies prosper;
For the Lord has afflicted her
jBecause of the multitude of her transgressions.
Her kchildren have gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion
All her splendor has departed.
Her princes have become like deer
That find no pasture,
That 5flee without strength
Before the pursuer.
7 In the days of her affliction and roaming,
Jerusalem lremembers all her pleasant things
That she had in the days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy,
With no one to help her,
The adversaries saw her
And mocked at her 6downfall.
8 mJerusalem has sinned gravely,
Therefore she has become 7vile.
All who honored her despise her
Because nthey have seen her nakedness;
Yes, she sighs and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts;
She odid not consider her destiny;
Therefore her collapse was awesome;
She had no comforter.
“O Lord, behold my affliction,
For the enemy is exalted!”
10 The adversary has spread his hand
Over all her 8pleasant things;
For she has seen pthe nations enter her 9sanctuary,
Those whom You commanded
qNot to enter Your assembly.
They have given their 2valuables for food to restore life.
“See, O Lord, and consider,
For I am scorned.”
12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who 3pass by?
Behold and see
sIf there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
Which has been brought on me,
Which the Lord has inflicted
In the day of His fierce anger.
13 “From above He has sent fire into my bones,
And it overpowered them;
He has tspread a net for my feet
And turned me back;
He has made me desolate
And faint all the day.
14 “The uyoke of my transgressions was 4bound;
They were woven together by His hands,
And thrust upon my neck.
He made my strength fail;
The Lord delivered me into the hands of those whom I am not able to withstand.
15 “The Lord has trampled underfoot all my mighty men in my midst;
He has called an assembly against me
To crush my young men;
vThe Lord trampled as in a winepress
The virgin daughter of Judah.
My eye, wmy eye overflows with water;
Because the comforter, who should restore my life,
Is far from me.
My children are desolate
Because the enemy prevailed.”
17 xZion 5spreads out her hands,
But no one comforts her;
The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob
That those yaround him become his adversaries;
Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.
18 “The Lord is zrighteous,
For I arebelled against His 6commandment.
Hear now, all peoples,
And behold my sorrow;
My virgins and my young men
Have gone into captivity.
But they deceived me;
My priests and my elders
Breathed their last in the city,
While they sought food
To restore their life.
20 “See, O Lord, that I am in distress;
My heart is overturned within me,
For I have been very rebellious.
cOutside the sword bereaves,
At home it is like death.
21 “They have heard that I sigh,
But no one comforts me.
All my enemies have heard of my trouble;
They are dglad that You have done it.
Bring on ethe day You have 8announced,
That they may become like me.
22 “Let fall their wickedness come before You,
And do to them as You have done to me
For all my transgressions;
For my sighs are many,
And my heart is faint.”
2 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
With a acloud in His anger!
bHe cast down from heaven to the earth
cThe beauty of Israel,
And did not remember dHis footstool
In the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up and has enot pitied
All the dwelling places of Jacob.
He has thrown down in His wrath
The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has brought them down to the ground;
fHe has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger
Every 1horn of Israel;
gHe has drawn back His right hand
From before the enemy.
hHe has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
Devouring all around.
4 iStanding like an enemy, He has bent His bow;
With His right hand, like an adversary,
He has slain jall who were pleasing to His eye;
On the tent of the daughter of Zion,
He has poured out His fury like fire.
5 kThe Lord was like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel,
He has swallowed up all her palaces;
lHe has destroyed her strongholds,
And has increased mourning and lamentation
In the daughter of Judah.
6 He has done violence mto His 2tabernacle,
nAs if it were a garden;
He has destroyed His place of assembly;
The Lord has caused
The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion.
In His burning indignation He has ospurned the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has spurned His altar,
He has pabandoned His sanctuary;
He has 3given up the walls of her palaces
Into the hand of the enemy.
qThey have made a noise in the house of the Lord
As on the day of a set feast.
8 The Lord has 4purposed to destroy
The rwall of the daughter of Zion.
sHe has stretched out a line;
He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying;
Therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament;
They languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed and tbroken her bars.
uHer king and her princes are among the 5nations;
vThe Law is no more,
And her wprophets find no 6vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
xSit on the ground and keep silence;
7They ythrow dust on their heads
And zgird themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
Bow their heads to the ground.
11 aMy eyes fail with tears,
My 8heart is troubled;
bMy 9bile is poured on the ground
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
Because cthe children and the infants
Faint in the streets of the city.
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they swoon like the wounded
In the streets of the city,
As their life is poured out
In their mothers’ bosom.
To what shall I liken you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is spread wide as the sea;
Who can heal you?
14 Your eprophets have seen for you
False and deceptive visions;
They have not funcovered your iniquity,
To bring back your captives,
But have envisioned for you false gprophecies and delusions.
15 All who 2pass by hclap their hands at you;
They hiss iand shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that is called
j‘The perfection of beauty,
The joy of the whole earth’?”
16 kAll your enemies have opened their mouth against you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, l“We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the mday we have waited for;
We have found it, nwe have seen it!”
17 The Lord has done what He opurposed;
He has fulfilled His word
Which He commanded in days of old.
He has thrown down and has not pitied,
And He has caused an enemy to prejoice over you;
He has exalted the 3horn of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord,
“O wall of the daughter of Zion,
qLet tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief;
Give 4your eyes no rest.
19 “Arise, rcry out in the night,
At the beginning of the watches;
sPour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.
Lift your hands toward Him
For the life of your young children,
Who faint from hunger tat the head of every street.”
20 “See, O Lord, and consider!
To whom have You done this?
uShould the women eat their offspring,
The children 5they have cuddled?
Should the priest and prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 “Young vand old lie
On the ground in the streets;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the wsword;
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered and not pitied.
22 “You have invited as to a feast day
xThe terrors that surround me.
In the day of the Lord’s anger
There was no refugee or survivor.
yThose whom I have borne and brought up
My enemies have zdestroyed.”
The Prophet’s Anguish and Hope
3 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2 He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
3 Surely He has turned His hand against me
Time and time again throughout the day.
4 He has aged amy flesh and my skin,
And bbroken my bones.
And surrounded me with bitterness and 1woe.
6 cHe has set me in dark places
Like the dead of long ago.
7 dHe has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.
8 Even ewhen I cry and shout,
He shuts out my prayer.
9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10 fHe has been to me a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in 2ambush.
11 He has turned aside my ways and gtorn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
And hset me up as a target for the arrow.
13 He has caused ithe 3arrows of His quiver
To pierce my 4loins.
14 I have become the jridicule of all my people—
kTheir taunting song all the day.
15 lHe has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drink wormwood.
16 He has also broken my teeth mwith gravel,
And 5covered me with ashes.
17 You have moved my soul far from peace;
I have forgotten 6prosperity.
18 nAnd I said, “My strength and my hope
Have perished from the Lord.”
19 Remember my affliction and roaming,
And 8sinks within me.
Therefore I have phope.
22 qThrough the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions rfail not.
23 They are new severy morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my tportion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I uhope in Him!”
25 The Lord is good to those who v