Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

The adversary has spread out his hand
Over all her precious and desirable things;
For she has seen the [Gentile] nations enter her sanctuary (the Jerusalem temple)—
The ones whom You commanded
That they should not enter into Your congregation [not even in the outer courts].

(Lamed) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by on the road? Look and see! Is there any pain like mine? The Lord has afflicted me, he has inflicted it on me when he burned with anger.

I called for my lovers, they -- they have deceived me, My priests and my elders in the city have expired; When they have sought food for themselves, Then they give back their soul.

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.

(Alef) Alas! The Lord has covered Daughter Zion with his anger. He has thrown down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he did not protect his temple when he displayed his anger.

Blinded with tears are mine eyes, In ferment is my body, Poured out to the earth is my grief, for the sore hurt of the daughter of my people, - when child and suckling are swooning, in the broadways of the city.

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.

(Qof) Get up! Cry out in the night when the night watches start! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord! Lift up your hands to him for your children's lives; they are fainting at every street corner.

(Sin/Shin) The young boys and old men lie dead on the ground in the streets. My young women and my young men have fallen by the sword. You killed them when you were angry; you slaughtered them without mercy.

Wilt thou proclaim, like the day of an appointed meeting - My terrors round about? when there was not - in the day of the anger of Yahweh - fugitive or survivor, - Those whom I dandled and reared, my foe hath destroyed.

Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

Good! when one doth stay and stand still For the salvation of Jehovah.

It is good for a man to undergo the yoke when he is young.

Let him sit alone and be silent when he has laid it on 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.

When a man is thwarted in his appeal, does the Lord condone it?

Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

Why should any living person complain when punished for his sins?

O LORD, when will thou look down from heaven, and consider?

You came near on a day [when] I called you, you said, "Do not fear!"

When they sit and when they rise, look,
I am mocked by their songs.

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.

With their own hands, compassionate women boil their own children they become their food when my beloved people were destroyed.

They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

{Shin} And thou, O daughter Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz, be glad and rejoice: for the cup shall come unto thee also, which when thou suppest of thou shalt be drunk.