In the days of her affliction and homelessness
Jerusalem remembers all her precious things
That she had from the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the adversary,
And no one helped her,
The enemy saw her,
They mocked at her downfall.

“The Lord has rejected all the strong men
In my midst;
He has proclaimed an established time against me
To crush my young men.
The Lord has trampled down as in a wine press
The Virgin Daughter of Judah.

“Let all their wickedness come before You;
And deal with them as You have dealt with me
Because of all my transgressions;
For my groans are many and my heart is faint.”

The Lord has rejected His altar;
He has abandoned His sanctuary.
He has given into the hand of the enemy
The walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord
As on a day of an appointed feast.

They cry to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their life [slips away and] is poured out
In their mothers’ arms.

How shall I console you?
To what shall I compare you,
O Daughter of Jerusalem?
With what shall I compare you, so that I may comfort you,
O Virgin Daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can heal you?

Their hearts cried out to the Lord.
“O wall of the Daughter of Zion,
Let your tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief,
Let your eyes have no rest.

You [Lord] called as in the day of an appointed feast
My terrors (dangers) on every side;
And there was no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those I have cared for and brought up with tenderness,
My enemy annihilated them.

He has bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.

To deprive a man of justice
In the presence of the Most High,

The [noble and] precious sons of Zion,
[Once] worth their weight in fine gold,
How they are regarded [merely] as earthen jars,
The work of a potter’s hands!

Those who feasted on delicacies
Are perishing in the streets;
Those reared in purple [as nobles]
Embrace ash heaps.

They wandered, blind, in the streets;
They were defiled with blood
So that no one could touch their garments.

People cried to them, “Go away! Unclean!
Depart! Depart! Do not touch!”
So they fled, then they wandered [as fugitives];
People among the nations said,
“They shall not stay here any longer with us.”

[And as for us,] yet our eyes failed,
Looking in vain for help.
Watching [from the towers] we watched
For a nation that could not save.

We have given the hand [as a pledge of fidelity and submission] to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

Our skin is as hot as [the heat of] an oven
Because of the burning heat of [the fever of] famine.

As for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
Foxes and the jackals prowl over it.

Return us to You, O Lord, so that we may be restored;
Renew our days as of old,