How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

Bitterly she cries in the night, as tears stream down her cheeks. No one consoles her of all her friends. All her neighbors have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

Judah has been taken away as a prisoner because of trouble and hard work; her living-place is among the nations, there is no rest for her: all her attackers have overtaken her in a narrow place.

The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly: all her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are in grief; and as for her, she is in bitterness.

ה HeHer adversaries have become her masters;
her enemies are at ease,
for the Lord has made her suffer
because of her many transgressions.
Her children have gone away
as captives before the adversary.

And go out from the daughter of Zion doth all her honour, Her princes have been as harts -- They have not found pasture, And they go powerless before a pursuer.

In the days of her affliction and homelessness
Jerusalem remembers all her precious things
That she had from the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the adversary,
And no one helped her,
The enemy saw her,
They mocked at her downfall.

Jerusalem 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.

His hand, hath the adversary spread out, over all her precious things, - for she saw that, the nations, entered her sanctuary, as to whom thou didst command they should not enter - in the convocation - unto thee!

All her people groaned as they searched for food. They traded their valuables in order to eat, to keep themselves alive. Look, LORD, and see how I have become dishonored.

Nothing to you, all ye passing by the way? Behold, and see if there is pain as my pain, which was done to me with which Jehovah afflicted in the day of the burning of his anger.

My 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.

The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.

The Lord is upright; for I have gone against his orders: give ear, now, all you peoples, and see my pain, my virgins and my young men have gone away as prisoners.

Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.

Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

{Aleph} Alas, how hath the LORD darkened the daughter of Zion so sore in his wrath? As for the honour of Israel, he hath casten it down from heaven: How happeneth it, that he remembered not his own foot stool when he was angry?

He hath cut off in the heat of anger every horn of Israel, He hath turned backward His right hand From the face of the enemy, And He burneth against Jacob as a flaming fire, It hath devoured round about.

He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.

(Tet) Her city gates have fallen to the ground; he smashed to bits the bars that lock her gates. Her king and princes were taken into exile; there is no more guidance available. As for her prophets, they no longer receive a vision from the Lord.

They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.

What shall I take to witness for thee? what shall I liken unto thee, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, virgin daughter of Zion? For thy ruin is great as the sea: who will heal thee?

(Nun) Your prophets saw visions for you that were worthless lies. They failed to expose your sin so as to restore your fortunes. They saw oracles for you that were worthless lies.

The LORD did what he planned. He carried out his threat. Just as he commanded long ago, he has torn down without pity; He let the enemy boast about you and has exalted the power of your enemies.

Cried hath their heart unto the Lord; O wall of the daughter of Zion, Cause to go down as a stream tears daily and nightly, Give not rest to thyself, Let not the daughter of thine eye stand still.

Arise, cry aloud in the night, At the beginning of the watches. Pour out as water thy heart, Over against the face of the Lord, Lift up unto Him thy hands, for the soul of thine infants, Who are feeble with hunger at the head of all out-places.

Look! O Lord, see to whom you have done this! Are the women to take as their food the fruit of their bodies, the children who are folded in their arms? are the priest and the prophet to be put to death in the holy place of the Lord?

Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

He has broken my teeth on grit, he has trampled me down in ash.

Then I thought: My future is lost,
as well as my hope from the Lord.

Remember my affliction and my wandering, as wormwood and bitterness.

His faithfulness is great and reneweth itself as the morning.

To deprive a man of justice
In the presence of the Most High,

As for us, we have sinned and rebelled; but you have not pardoned us.

Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.

Hunted me sore as a bird have my enemies without cause.

You will give them hardness of heart as your curse to them.

The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

Also the dragons draw out the breast, they suckled their sucklings: the daughter of my people violent as the ostriches in the desert.

The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.

Those who feasted on delicacies
Are perishing in the streets;
Those reared in purple [as nobles]
Embrace ash heaps.

For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.

Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire.

Darker than blackness hath been their visage, They have not been known in out-places, Cleaved hath their skin unto their bone, It hath withered -- it hath been as wood.

{Tet} They that be slain with the sword, are happier than such as die of hunger, and perish away famishing for the fruits of the field.

[The] hands of compassionate women, have cooked their children; they became as something to eat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

People cried to them, “Go away! Unclean!
Depart! Depart! Do not touch!”
So they fled, then they wandered [as fugitives];
People among the nations said,
“They shall not stay here any longer with us.”

As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

שׂ SinSo rejoice and be glad, Daughter Edom,
you resident of the land of Uz!
Yet the cup will pass to you as well;
you will get drunk and expose yourself.

The punishment of your evil-doing is complete, O daughter of Zion; never again will he take you away as a prisoner: he will give you the reward of your evil-doing, O daughter of Edom; he will let your sin be uncovered.

We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

We have given the hand [as a pledge of fidelity and submission] to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

Our skin as an oven hath been burning, Because of the raging of the famine.

As for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
Foxes and the jackals prowl over it.

You, O Lord, are seated as King for ever; the seat of your power is eternal.

Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.