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!

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.

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.

Come in doth all their evil before Thee, And one is doing to them as Thou hast done to me, For all my transgressions, For many are my sighs, and my heart is sick!

He hath cut off in the heat of anger every horn of Israel, He hath turned backward His right hand From the face of the enemy, And He burneth against Jacob as a flaming fire, It hath devoured round about.

He hath trodden His bow as an enemy, Stood hath His right hand as an adversary, And He slayeth all the desirable ones of the eye, In the tent of the daughter of Zion, He hath poured out as fire His fury.

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.

And He shaketh as a garden His tabernacle, He hath destroyed His appointed place, Jehovah hath forgotten in Zion the appointed time and sabbath, And despiseth, in the indignation of His anger, king and priest.

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.

What do I testify to thee, what do I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What do I equal to thee, and I comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For great as a sea is thy breach, Who doth give healing to thee?

Cried hath their heart unto the Lord; O wall of the daughter of Zion, Cause to go down as a stream tears daily and nightly, Give not rest to thyself, Let not the daughter of thine eye stand still.

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.

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!

In dark places He hath caused me to dwell, As the dead of old.

He hath trodden His bow, And setteth me up as a mark for an arrow.

Hunted me sore as a bird have my enemies without cause.

And greater is the iniquity of the daughter of my people, Than the sin of Sodom, That was overturned as in a moment, And no hands were stayed on her.

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.

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

Our skin as an oven hath been burning, Because of the raging of the famine.

Turn us back, O Jehovah, unto Thee, And we turn back, renew our days as of old.