Fled from cherished Zion are all that were her splendor. Her princes have become like deer that cannot find their feeding grounds. They flee with strength exhausted from their pursuers.

He sent fire from on high, making it penetrate my bones. He stretched out a net at my feet, forcing me to turn back. He made me desolate; I'm fainting all day long.

Because of all this, I weep; my eyes stream with tears because far from me is the comforter of my soul. My children are sorrowful, because the enemy has won.

How the Lord in his wrath shamed cherished Zion! He cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel, He did not remember his footstool in the time of his anger.

The LORD planned to destroy the walls of cherished Zion. He measured them with his line. He did not withhold his hand from destruction. He made both ramparts and defensive walls mourn; they languish together.

Jerusalem's gates collapsed to the ground; he destroyed and broke the bars of her gates. Both king and prince have gone into captivity. There is no instruction, and the prophets receive no vision from the LORD.

My eyes are worn out from crying, my insides are churning, My emotions pour out in grief because my people are destroyed Children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

Cry out from your heart to the Lord, wall of fair Zion! Let your tears run down like a river day and night. Allow yourself no rest, and don't stop crying.

You have removed peace from my life; I have forgotten what prosperity is.

Do not both good and evil things proceed from the mouth of the Most High?

My tears pour down ceaselessly; I am far from relief

until the LORD bends down to see from heaven.

I called on your name, LORD, from the depths of the Pit,

Pursue them in your anger and destroy them from under the LORD's heaven.

The nursing child's tongue cleaves to its palate from thirst. Young children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.

Those who die by the sword are better off than those who die from starvation, who slowly waste away like those pierced through for lack of food from the fields.

Slaves rule over us, and no one delivers us from their control.

Our skin blisters as from an oven, due to ravaging blasts of the famine.

The crown has fallen from our head woe to us, because we have sinned!

You, LORD, are forever your throne endures from generation to generation.