She is sorrowing bitterly in the night, and her face is wet with weeping; among all her lovers she has no comforter: all her friends have been false to her, they have become her haters.

And all her glory has gone from the daughter of Zion: her rulers have become like harts with no place for food, and they have gone in flight without strength before the attacker.

Great is the sin of Jerusalem; for this cause she has become an unclean thing: all those who gave her honour are looking down on her, because they have seen her shame: now truly, breathing out grief, she is turned back.

The hand of her hater is stretched out over all her desired things; for she has seen that the nations have come into her holy place, about whom you gave orders that they were not to come into the meeting of your people.

Breathing out grief all her people are looking for bread; they have given their desired things for food to give them life: see, O Lord, and take note; for she has become a thing of shame.

A watch is kept on my sins; they are joined together by his hand, they have come on to my neck; he has made my strength give way: the Lord has given me up into the hands of those against whom I have no power.

I sent for my lovers, but they were false to me: my priests and my responsible men were breathing their last breath in the town, while they were looking for food to give them new life.

Give ear to the voice of my grief; I have no comforter; all my haters have news of my troubles, they are glad because you have done it: let the day of fate come when they will be like me.

It is the Lord's purpose to make waste the wall of the daughter of Zion; his line has been stretched out, he has not kept back his hand from destruction: he has sent sorrow on tower and wall, they have become feeble together.

The responsible men of the daughter of Zion are seated on the earth without a word; they have put dust on their heads, they are clothed in haircloth: the heads of the virgins of Jerusalem are bent down to the earth.

They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? when they are falling like the wounded in the open squares of the town, when their life is drained out on their mother's breast.

The visions which your prophets have seen for you are false and foolish; they have not made clear to you your sin so that your fate might be changed: but they have seen for you false words, driving you away.

All who go by make a noise with their hands at you; they make hisses, shaking their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, and saying, Is this the town which was the crown of everything beautiful, the joy of all the earth?

All your haters are opening their mouths wide against you; making hisses and whistling through their teeth, they say, We have made a meal of her: certainly this is the day we have been looking for; it has come, we have seen it.

They are new every morning; great is your good faith.

My eyes are streaming without stopping, they have no rest,

They who are against me without cause have gone hard after me as if I was a bird;

They have put an end to my life in the prison, stoning me with stones.

You have seen all the evil rewards they have sent on me, and all their designs against me.

Take note of them when they are seated, and when they get up; I am their song.

Even the beasts of the waste land have full breasts, they give milk to their young ones: the daughter of my people has become cruel like the ostriches in the waste land.

Her holy ones were cleaner than snow, they were whiter than milk, their bodies were redder than corals, their form was as the sapphire:

Their face is blacker than night; in the streets no one has knowledge of them: their skin is hanging on their bones, they are dry, they have become like wood.

The hands of kind-hearted women have been boiling their children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

They are wandering like blind men in the streets, they are made unclean with blood, so that their robes may not be touched by men.

Away! unclean! they were crying out to them, Away! away! let there be no touching: when they went away in flight and wandering, men said among the nations, There is no further resting-place for them.

The face of the Lord has sent them in all directions; he will no longer take care of them: they had no respect for the priests, they gave no honour to the old men.

They go after our steps so that we may not go in our streets: our end is near, our days are numbered; for our end has come.

They took by force the women in Zion, the virgins in the towns of Judah.