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 weeps bitterly in the night, her tears [are] on her cheeks; she has no comforter among all her lovers. All her friends have been unfaithful to her; they have become her 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, hath grievously sinned, For this cause, unto exile, hath she been delivered, - All who used to honour her, have despised her, for they have descried her unseemliness, yea, she herself, hath sighed, and turned back.

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.

The yoke of my transgressions, hath been bound, by his hand - They have intertwined themselves, have come up on my neck, it hath paralysed my strength, - My Lord, hath delivered me, into the hands of those against whom I cannot rise up.

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.

See, O Lord, for I am in trouble; the inmost parts of my body are deeply moved; my heart is turned in me; for I have been uncontrolled: outside the children are put to the sword, and in the house there is 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.

It is the Lord's purpose to make waste the wall of the daughter of Zion; his line has been stretched out, he has not kept back his hand from destruction: he has sent sorrow on tower and wall, they have become feeble together.

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.

As in the day of a holy meeting you have made fears come round me on every side, and no one got away or was kept safe in the day of the Lord's wrath: those who were folded in my arms, whom I took care of, have been sent to their destruction by my hater.

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.

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.

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.

And the punishment of the daughter of my people hath grown greater than the punishment of Sodom, - which was overthrown as in a moment, when no hands had been laid violently upon 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.

Those who have been put to the sword are better off than those whose death is caused by need of food; for these come to death slowly, burned up like the fruit of the field.

The hands of kind-hearted women have been boiling their children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

It is for the sins of her prophets, the iniquities of her priests, - who have been pouring out, in her midst, the blood of the righteous!

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 fragrance of our nostrils, The Anointed of Yahweh, hath been captured in their pits, - of whom we had said - In his shade, shall we live among the 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 has been turned over 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, not 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?