How does the city sit lovely, that was full of people! how has she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how has she become a slave!

The Lord has trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he has called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord has trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

Zion spreads forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD has commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as an unclean thing among them.

Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my soul is troubled; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is as death.

Let all their wickedness come before you; and do unto them, as you have done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

He has bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and has slain all that were pleasant to the eye in the tent of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

The Lord was as an enemy: he has swallowed up Israel, he has swallowed up all her palaces: he has destroyed his strongholds, and has increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

And he has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were a garden: he has destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD has caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and has despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary, he has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.

They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? when they faint as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.

What thing shall I take to witness for you? what thing shall I liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? for your run is vast as the sea: who can heal you?

You have called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have cared for and brought up has my enemy consumed.

He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

You have made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.

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

The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaks it unto them.

They that did eat delicacies are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace ash heaps.

For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, with no hands laid on her.

They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

As for us, our eyes as yet failed, watching for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

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

Turn us back to you, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.