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 tear is on her cheeks, There is no comforter for her out of all her lovers, All her friends dealt treacherously by her, They have been to her for enemies.

Judah has been taken away as a prisoner because of trouble and hard work; her living-place is among the nations, there is no rest for her: all her attackers have overtaken her in a narrow place.

Her adversaries have become chief, Her enemies have been at ease, For Jehovah hath afflicted her, For the abundance of her transgressions, Her infants have gone captive before the adversary.

And go out from the daughter of Zion doth all her honour, Her princes have been as harts -- They have not found pasture, And they go powerless before a pursuer.

Jerusalem hath remembered in the days of her humiliation and her fleeings - all her precious things, which have existed from the days of old, - Now that her people have been falling into the hand of the adversary, with none to help her, the adversaries have seen her, have mocked over her sabbath-keepings.

Jerusalem sinned greatly;
Therefore she has become an unclean thing [and has been removed].
All who honored her [now] despise her
Because they have seen her nakedness;
Even she herself groans and turns [her face] away.

Her uncleanness [was] in her skirts; she did not remember her future, she has descended beyond understanding, there is no comforter for her. See, O Yahweh, my persecution! [My] enemy has been made great!

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.

Is it nothing to you, all ye passing by the way? Look attentively, and see, If there is any pain like my pain, That He is rolling to me? Whom Jehovah hath afflicted In the day of the fierceness of His anger.

From above He hath sent fire into my bone, And it subdueth it, He hath spread a net for my feet, He hath turned me backward, He hath made me desolate -- all the day sick.

Bound hath been the yoke of my transgressions by His hand, They are wrapped together, They have gone up on my neck, He hath caused my power to stumble, The Lord hath given me into hands, I am not able to rise.

The Lord has made sport of all my men of war in me, he has got men together against me to send destruction on my young men: the virgin daughter of Judah has been crushed like grapes under the feet of the Lord.

For these I am weeping, My eye, my eye, is running down with waters, For, far from me hath been a comforter, Refreshing my soul, My sons have been desolate, For mighty hath been an enemy.

Righteous is Jehovah, For His mouth I have provoked. Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and see my pain, My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

See, O Jehovah, for distress is to me, My bowels have been troubled, Turned hath been my heart in my midst, For I have greatly provoked, From without bereaved hath the sword, In the house it is as death.

How has the daughter of Zion been covered with a cloud by the Lord in his wrath! he has sent down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel, and has not kept in memory the resting-place of his feet in the day of his wrath.

In his burning wrath every horn of Israel has been cut off; his right hand has been turned back before the attacker: he has put a fire in Jacob, causing destruction round about.

His bow has been bent for the attack, he has taken his place with his hand ready, in his hate he has put to death all who were pleasing to the eye: on the tent of the daughter of Zion he has let loose his passion like fire.

The Lord hath been as an enemy, He hath swallowed up Israel, He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed His fortresses, And He multiplieth in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning.

The Lord has given up his altar and has been turned in hate from his holy place; he has given up into the hands of the attacker the walls of her great houses: their voices have been loud in the house of the Lord as in the day of a holy meeting.

Devised hath Jehovah to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion, He hath stretched out a line, He hath not turned His hand from destroying, And He causeth bulwark and wall to mourn, Together -- they have been weak.

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,

{Lamed} Even when they spake to their mothers, "Where is meat and drink?" For while they so said, they fell down in the streets of the city, like as they had been wounded, and some died in their mothers' bosom.

Your prophets look on your behalf; they see false and deceptive visions. They did not expose your sins in order to restore what had been captured. Instead, they crafted oracles for you that are false and misleading.

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 young men and the old are stretched on the earth in the streets; my virgins and my young men have been put to the sword: you have sent death on them in the day of your wrath, causing death without pity.

Thou dost call as at a day of appointment, My fears from round about, And there hath not been in the day of the anger of Jehovah, An escaped and remaining one, They whom I stretched out and nourished, My enemy hath consumed!

By him I have been made to go in the dark where there is no light.

Truly against me his hand has been turned again and again all the day.

My flesh and my skin have been used up by him and my bones broken.

He hath made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead.

By him my ways have been turned on one side and I have been pulled in bits; he has made me waste.

I have been a derision to all my people, Their song all the day.

He has made my life nothing but pain, he has given me the bitter root in full measure.

By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust.

My life has been removed from peace, I have forgotten goodness.

The kindnesses of Jehovah! For we have not been consumed, For not ended have His mercies.

Who is able to say a thing, and give effect to it, if it has not been ordered by the Lord?

We have been dissemblers, and have offended; will thou therefore not be intreated?

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

My eyes bring pain to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.

Without cause my enemies
Hunted me down like a bird;

Flowed have waters over my head, I have said, I have been cut off.

LORD, you observed how I have been wronged; now make your ruling in my case.

How tarnished the gold has become, the finest gold debased! Sacred stones have been scattered at every street corner.

The precious sons of Zion, Who are comparable with fine gold, How have they been reckoned earthen bottles, Work of the hands of a potter.

Those eating of dainties have been desolate in out-places, Those supported on scarlet have embraced dunghills.

For the [punishment of the] wickedness of the daughter of my people [Jerusalem]
Is greater than the [punishment for the] sin of Sodom,
Which was overthrown in a moment,
And no hands were turned toward her [to offer help].

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were redder of bone than corals; their cuttings as lapis lazuli, azure blue.

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.

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.

The hands of merciful women have boiled their own children, They have been for food to them, In the destruction of the daughter of my people.

It is because of the sins of her prophets and the evil-doing of her priests, by whom the blood of the upright has been drained out in her.

They have wandered naked in out-places, They have been polluted with blood, Without any being able to touch their clothing,

Our eyes are still wasting away in looking for our false help: we have been watching for a nation unable to give salvation.

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

Swifter have been our pursuers, Than the eagles of the heavens, On the mountains they have burned after us, In the wilderness they have laid wait for us.

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.'

The punishment of your iniquity has been completed, O daughter of Zion;
He will exile you no longer.
But He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom;
He will expose your sins!

Remember, O Jehovah, what has been to us; look down and see our shame.

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

Orphans we have been -- without a father, our mothers are as widows.

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.

Princes by their hand have been hanged, The faces of elders have not been honoured.

Ceased hath the joy of our heart, Turned to mourning hath been our dancing.

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

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

Why have we gone from your memory for ever? why have you been turned away from us for so long?

For hast Thou utterly rejected us? Thou hast been wroth against us -- exceedingly?