Lamentations 1–4

The Desolate City

1How desolate the city sits

that was full of people!

She has become like a widow,

once great among the nations!

Like a woman of nobility in the provinces,

she has become a forced laborer.

²She weeps bitterly in the night,

her tears are on her cheeks;

she has no comforter

among all her lovers.

All her friends have been unfaithful to her;

they have become her enemies.

³Judah has gone into exile with misery

and under hard servitude;

she lives among the nations,

she has not found a resting place;

all her pursuers have overtaken her

amidst her distress.

⁴The roads of Zion are mourning

because no one comes to the festival.

All her gates are desolate,

her priests groan;

her young women are worried,

and she herself suffers bitterly.

⁵Her foes have become her master,^a

her enemies are at ease;

Yahweh has made her suffer

because of the greatness of her transgressions.

Her children have gone away,

captive before the foe.

⁶All her majesty has gone away

from the daughter of Zion;

her princes have become like young stags

that have not found pasture;

they have gone away without strength,

before the pursuer.

⁷Jerusalem remembers

the days of her misery and wanderings,

all her treasures

that were from the days of long ago.

When her people fell into the hand of the enemy,

there was no one helping her;

the enemies saw her, they mocked

at her destruction.

⁸Jerusalem sinned grievously,

thus she became an objection of derision;

all those who honored her despise her

because they have seen her nakedness.

She herself groans

and turns away.

⁹Her uncleanness was in her skirts;

she did not remember her future,

she has descended beyond understanding,

there is no comforter for her.

See, O Yahweh, my persecution!

My enemy has been made great!

¹⁰The enemy has stretched out his hand

over all her treasures;

for she has seen the nations,

they entered her sanctuary,

those whom you commanded not to enter

in your assembly.

¹¹All her people groan,

they are searching for bread.

They give their treasures for food,

to bring back life.

See, O Yahweh, and look,

how I am despised.

¹²Is it nothing to you, all who pass by?^b

Look and see

if there is sorrow like my sorrow,^c

which was dealt to me,

which Yahweh inflicted

on the day of his wrath.^d

¹³From heaven he sent fire,

into my bones he let it descend.

He spread out a net for my feet;

he turned me back,

he gave me devastation,

fainting all day.

¹⁴My rebellion was bound as a yoke,

with his hand it was fastened together;

it was put on my neck

and caused my strength to fail.

The Lord gave me into the hands

of those whom I cannot withstand.

¹⁵The Lord has rejected

all my mighty ones in my midst.

He called an assembly against me,

to crush my young men;

like in a wine press,

the Lord has trodden on

the virgin daughter of Judah.

¹⁶For these things, I am weeping,

my eyes flow with tears;^e

because a comforter is far from me,

one to restore my life.

My sons are desolate

because the enemy has prevailed.

¹⁷Zion stretches out her hands;

there is no one to comfort her.

Yahweh has commanded against Jacob,

that those surrounding him^f should be his enemies;

Jerusalem has become

a defilement among them.

¹⁸Yahweh is righteous;

I have rebelled against his word.^g

Please hear, all the nations,

And see my pain;

My young women^h and young men

went into captivity.

¹⁹I have called to my lovers,

they themselves deceived me;

my priests and elders perished in the city

when they sought food for themselves

to revive their life.ⁱ

²⁰See, O Yahweh, that I am in distress;^j

my stomach^k is in torment,

my heart has turned inside me

because I have certainly rebelled.

From outside a sword brings bereavement,

inside the house it is like death.

²¹They hear that I was groaning;

there is no comforter for me.

All my enemies have heard my misery,

they are pleased that you have done it.

Bring that day that you have proclaimed,^l

And let them be like me.

²²Let all their evil come before you;

and deal with them

just as you have dealt with me

because of all my crimes;

for my groaning is much and my heart is faint.

The Lord is Angry

2How, in his anger,^a

the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion in a cloud!

He has thrown down from heavens to earth

the splendor of Israel,

and he has not remembered his footstool

in the day of his anger.^b

²The Lord has devoured; he has not shown mercy

to all the dwellings of Jacob;

he has broken down in his wrath

the fortifications of the daughter of Judah;

he has leveled to the ground, he has dishonored

the kingdom and its commanders.^c

³He has cut down in fierce anger^d

all the might of Israel;

he has withdrawn his right hand

from the faces of the enemy,

and he has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire,

it has consumed all around.

⁴He has bent his bow like an enemy;

he has set his right hand

like a foe, and he has slain

all the treasures of the eye;^e

in the tent of the daughter of Zion,

he has poured out his anger like fire.

⁵The Lord has become like an enemy;

he has destroyed Israel;

he has destroyed all its citadel fortresses;^f

he has ruined all its fortifications

and multiplied lamentation and mourning

in the daughter of Judah.

⁶He has broken down his dwelling^g place like the garden;

he has ruined his appointed feasts;

Yahweh has made them forget in Zion

festival^h and Sabbath,

and he has despised in his anger

king and priest.

⁷The Lord has rejected his altar;

he has rejected his sanctuary;

he has delivered into the hands of the enemy

the walls of its citadel fortresses.ⁱ

They have cried out in the house of Yahweh

like a day of an appointed feast.

⁸Yahweh has planned to destroy

the wall of the daughter of Zion.

He measured with a line; he has not restrained

his hand from destroying;

he caused rampart and wall to mourn;

together they have languished away.

⁹Her gates have sunk into the earth;

he has ruined and broken her bars,

her kings and its princes are among the nations;

there is no more law.^j

Also, her prophets have not found

a revelation from Yahweh.

¹⁰They sit on the ground,

the elders of the daughter of Zion are silent.

They cast dust on their head,

they have put on sackcloth;

the young women of Jerusalem

have bowed their head down to the ground.

¹¹My eyes have spent all their tears;^k

my stomach^l is in torment,

my heart^m is poured out on the earth

because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,

because child and babe faint

in the public squares of a city.

¹²To their mothers they say,

“Where is the bread and wine?”

as they faint like the wounded

in the public squares of a city,

as their life is being poured out

onto the bosom of their mothers.

¹³What can I say for you? What can I compare to you,

O daughter of Jerusalem?

To what can I liken you so that I can comfort you,

O virgin daughter of Zion?

For your destruction is as vast as the sea;

who can heal you?

¹⁴Your prophets had a vision for you,

false and worthless;

they have not exposed your sin,

to restore your fortune;

they have seen oracles for you,

false and misleading.

¹⁵They clap hands over you,

all who pass along the way;

they hiss and they shake their head,

at the daughter of Jerusalem.

Is this the city of which it is said,

“A perfection of beauty, a joy for all the earth?”

¹⁶They have opened their mouths against you,

all your enemies.

They hiss and gnash a tooth,

and they say, “We have destroyed her!

Surely this is the day we have hoped for;

we have found it, we have seen it!”

¹⁷Yahweh has done what he has planned;

he has fulfilled his promise

that he ordained from the days of old;

he has demolished and not shown mercy;

he has made an enemy rejoice over you,

he has exalted the mightⁿ of your foes.

¹⁸Their heart cried to the Lord,

“O wall of the daughter of Zion,

let tears stream down like a river;

day and night,

do not give yourself relief,

do not give your eyes rest.

¹⁹“Arise, cry out in the night,

at the beginning of the night watches;

pour out your heart like water,

before the face of the Lord.

Lift to him your hands,

for the life of your children,

who faint in starvation,

at the head of all streets.”

²⁰See, Yahweh, and take note!

With whom have you dealt thus?

Should women eat their young

children of tender care?

Should priest and prophet be slain

in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹They lie in the soil of the streets,

young and old;

my young women^o and young men,

they have fallen by the sword;

you have slain on the day of your anger,^p

you have slaughtered and not shown mercy.

²²You have summoned my horror from all around,

as if for a feast day;

no one on the day of Yahweh’s anger

is a fugitive and a survivor;

whoever I have cared for and reared,

my enemy has destroyed.

Israel’s Affliction

3I am a man who has seen misery,

under the rod of his wrath.

²He has driven me along, he brought

darkness and not light.

³Surely he has turned his hand against me,

all day long.

⁴He has worn out my flesh and skin,

he has broken my bones.

⁵He has besieged^a and engulfed me

with bitterness and hardship.

⁶In darkness he has let me dwell

like the dead of long ago.

⁷He has built a wall around me, I cannot go out;

he has made my bronze fetters heavy.

⁸Though I cry out for help,

he shuts out my prayers.

⁹He has blocked my ways with dressed stones;

he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰To me he is like a bear lying in wait,

a lion in hiding.

¹¹He has forsaken my way and torn me to pieces;

he has caused me desolation.

¹²He has bent his bow and set me

as the target for the arrow.

¹³He shot the arrows of his quiver^b

into my kidneys.

¹⁴I have become a laughingstock for all the people,

their mocking song all day long.

¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness,

he has drenched me with wormwood.

¹⁶He has broken my teeth on grit,

he has trampled me down in ash.

¹⁷My life has been removed from peace,

I have forgotten goodness.

¹⁸And I have said, “My glory is ruined,

my expectation from Yahweh.”

¹⁹Remember my misery and bitterness,

the wormwood^c and venom!

²⁰Surely my soul remembers

and bows down within me.

²¹This I have…