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.

The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in 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.

And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

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.

{Tet} Her skirts are defiled, she remembered not what would follow: therefore is her fall so great, and there is no man to comfort her. O LORD, consider my trouble, for my enemy hath the upper hand.

The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: For she hath seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary, Concerning whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thine assembly.

All her people are sighing -- seeking bread, They have given their desirable things For food to refresh the body; See, O Jehovah, and behold attentively, For I have been lightly esteemed.

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.

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

Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort her; Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, that they that are round about him should be his adversaries: Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

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.

They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.

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.

{Vav} Her tabernacle - which was like a garden of pleasure - hath he destroyed; her high solemn feasts hath he put down. The LORD hath brought it so to pass, that the high solemn feasts and Sabbaths in Zion are clean forgotten. In his heavy displeasure hath he made the king and priests to be despised.

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.

They 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.

Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

To their mothers they say, 'Where are corn and wine?' In their becoming feeble as a pierced one In the broad places of the city, In their soul pouring itself out into the bosom of their mothers.

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 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.

The Lord has done that which was his purpose; he has put into force the orders which he gave in the days which are past; pulling down without pity, he has made your hater glad over you, lifting up the horn of those who were against you.

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.

See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.

{Tav} My neighbours that are round about me hast thou called, as it were to a feast day: so that in the day of the LORD's wrath none escaped, neither was any left behind. Those that I had brought up and nourished, hath mine enemy destroyed.

He has forced me to live in darkness, like those who are long dead.

He walled up my ways with cut stone; my paths are crooked.

My soul has been cast far away from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.

And I said, My strength and my hope from Jehovah are gone.

It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

The Lord is good to those who are waiting for him, to the soul which is looking for him.

When any of the prisoners of the earth are crushed underfoot,

when a person's rights are perverted in defiance of the Most High.

The mouths of all our haters are open wide against us.

Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and destruction.

Rivers of water are running down from my eyes, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

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

They have chased me sore like a bird, they that are mine enemies without cause.

Thou hast well considered how they go about to do me harm, and that all their counsels are against me.

The lips and whispering of my assailants
Are against me all day long.

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

How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.

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

Even wild animals nurse, suckling their young; but the women of my people are cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness.

The tongue of the child at the breast is fixed to the roof of his mouth for need of drink: the young children are crying out for bread, and no man gives it to them.

They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.

{Yod} The women, which of nature are pitiful, have sodden their own children with their hands that they might be their meat, in the miserable destruction of the daughter of my people.

Because of the sins of her prophets, The iniquities of her priests, Who are shedding in her midst the blood of the righteous,

They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, So that men cannot touch their garments.

(Samek) People cry to them, "Turn away! You are unclean! Turn away! Turn away! Don't touch us!" So they have fled and wander about; but the nations say, "They may not stay here any longer."

פ PeThe Lord Himself has scattered them;
He regards them no more.
The priests are not respected;
the elders find no favor.

While we exist -- consumed are our eyes for our vain help, In our watch-tower we have watched for a nation that saveth not.

They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.

Our heritage is given up to men of strange lands, our houses to those who are not our countrymen.

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

We are fain to drink our own water for money, and our own wood must we buy with money.

Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest.

Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.

Servants are ruling over us, and there is no one to make us free from their hands.

Women are raped in Zion,
girls in the cities of Judah.

Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.

they have taken young men's lives from them, and the boys are hanged up upon trees.

Elders are no longer at the gate, young men no longer play stringed instruments.

The crown has been taken from our head: sorrow is ours, for we are sinners.

For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.

For wild animals are prowling over Mount Zion, which lies desolate.

You, Lord, are enthroned forever;
Your throne endures from generation to generation.

Unless You have utterly rejected us
And are exceedingly angry with us.