Lamentations 1:1–11

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!

She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations!

She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!

²She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks;

Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:

All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies.

³Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude;

She dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest:

All her persecutors overtook her within the straits.

⁴The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly;

All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh:

Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.

⁵Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper;

For Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:

Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.

⁶And from the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed:

Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,

And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

⁷Jerusalem remembereth in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old:

When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her,

The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations.

⁸Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing;

All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:

Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

⁹Her filthiness was in her skirts; she remembered not her latter end;

Therefore is she come down wonderfully; she hath no comforter:

Behold, O Jehovah, my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself.

¹⁰The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:

For she hath seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary,

Concerning whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thine assembly.

¹¹All her people sigh, they seek bread;

They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul:

See, O Jehovah, and behold; for I am become abject.