The roads that lead to Zion are in mourning, because no one travels to the festivals. All her gates are desolate; her priests are moaning. Her young women are grieving, and she is bitter.

Fled from cherished Zion are all that were her splendor. Her princes have become like deer that cannot find their feeding grounds. They flee with strength exhausted from their pursuers.

Because of all this, I weep; my eyes stream with tears because far from me is the comforter of my soul. My children are sorrowful, because the enemy has won.

Zion spreads out her hands; no one is there to comfort her. The LORD has issued an order against Jacob, that all who are around him are to be his enemies; Jerusalem has become unclean among them.

Look, LORD, how distressed I am; all my insides are churning. My heart is troubled within me, because I vigorously rebelled. Outside the sword brings loss of life, while at home death rules.

My eyes are worn out from crying, my insides are churning, My emotions pour out in grief because my people are destroyed Children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

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.

Get up and cry aloud in the night, at the beginning of every hour. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord! Lift up your hands toward him for the lives of your children, who are fainting away at every street corner.

He has forced me to live in darkness, like those who are long dead.

Because of the LORD's gracious love we are not consumed, since his compassions never end.

They are new every morning great is your faithfulness!

When any of the prisoners of the earth are crushed underfoot,

when a person's rights are perverted in defiance of the Most High.

Though the precious people of Zion were like fine gold, how they are valued like clay vessels, the handiwork of a potter!

Even wild animals nurse, suckling their young; but the women of my people are cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness.

Now their faces are blacker than coal; they are unrecognized in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones; it has become dry like a stick.

Those who die by the sword are better off than those who die from starvation, who slowly waste away like those pierced through for lack of food from the fields.

Our steps were closely stalked, so we couldn't travel on our own streets. Our end is near, our days are over; indeed, our end has come.

We are now orphans without fathers and our mothers are like widows.

Our pursuers breathe down our necks; we are weary, but there is no rest for us.

You, LORD, are forever your throne endures from generation to generation.

unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us without limit.