How hath she sat alone, The city abounding with people! She hath been as a widow, The mighty among nations! Princes among provinces, She hath become tributary!

She 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.

Removed hath Judah because of affliction, And because of the abundance of her service; She hath dwelt among nations, She hath not found rest, All her pursuers have overtaken her between the straits.

The ways of Zion are mourning, Without any coming at the appointed time, All her gates are desolate, her priests sigh, Her virgins are afflicted -- and she hath bitterness.

Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

Thus hath gone forth from the daughter of Zion, all that adorned her, - Her princes have become like harts that have found no pasture, and have gone strengthless before the pursuer.

Remembered hath Jerusalem In the days of her affliction and her mournings, all her desirable things that were from the days of old, In the falling of her people into the hand of an adversary, And she hath no helper; Seen her have adversaries, They have laughed at her cessation.

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

{Khaf} All her people seek their bread with heaviness, and look: what precious things every man hath, that giveth he for meat to save his life. Consider, O LORD, and see, how vile I am become.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.

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.

For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water; Because the comforter that should refresh my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, because the enemy hath prevailed.

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.

See, Jehovah, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled; my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled: without, the sword hath bereaved me, within, it is as death.

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth 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.

The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.

Consumed by tears have been my eyes, Troubled have been my bowels, Poured out to the earth hath been my liver, For the breach of the daughter of my people; In infant and suckling being feeble, In the broad places of the city,

The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

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.

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.

I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

Surely against me hath he turned again and again his hand all the day.

My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.

He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.

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

He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.

Also when I call and cry out, He hath shut out my prayer.

He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.

He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.

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

He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.

He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.

He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.

He hath put my soul out of rest; I forget all good things.

And I say, Perished hath my strength and my hope from Jehovah.

My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

My portion is Jehovah, hath my soul said, Therefore I hope for Him.

He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.

For though He afflicted, yet He hath pitied, According to the abundance of His kindness.

For He hath not afflicted with His heart, Nor doth He grieve the sons of men.

To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord hath not approved.

Who is he that saith, and there cometh to pass, what the Lord hath not commanded?

Fear and a snare hath been for us, Desolation and destruction.

Even wild dogs, draw out the breast, give suck to their whelps - The daughter of my people, hath become cruel, like the ostriches in the desert.

Cleaved hath the tongue of a suckling unto his palate with thirst, Infants asked bread, a dealer out they have none.

And the punishment of the daughter of my people hath grown greater than the punishment of Sodom, - which was overthrown as in a moment, when no hands had been laid violently upon her.

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.

The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.

The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.

They have hunted our steps from going in our broad-places, Near hath been our end, fulfilled our days, For come hath our end.

The breath of our nostrils -- the anointed of Jehovah, Hath been captured in their pits, of whom we said: 'In his shadow we do live among nations.'

Completed is thy iniquity, daughter of Zion, He doth not add to remove thee, He hath inspected thy iniquity, O daughter of Edom, He hath removed thee because of thy sins!

Remember, O Jehovah, what hath befallen us, Look attentively, and see our reproach.

Our inheritance hath been turned to strangers, Our houses to foreigners.

For our neck we have been pursued, We have laboured -- there hath been no rest for us.

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

The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

Fallen hath the crown from our head, Woe is now to us, for we have sinned.

For this hath our heart been sick, For these have our eyes been dim.