How solitary and lonely sits the city [Jerusalem]
That was [once] full of people!
How like a widow she has become.
She who was great among the nations!
The princess among the provinces,
Has become a forced laborer!

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.

Her (ceremonial) uncleanness was on her skirts;
She did not [seriously] consider her future.
Therefore she has come down [from throne to slavery] in an astonishing manner;
She has no comforter.
“O Lord” [cries Jerusalem], “look at my affliction,
For the enemy has magnified himself [in triumph]!”

The adversary has spread out his hand
Over all her precious and desirable things;
For she has seen the [Gentile] nations enter her sanctuary (the Jerusalem temple)—
The ones whom You commanded
That they should not enter into Your congregation [not even in the outer courts].

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass this way?
Look and see if there is any pain like my pain
Which was severely dealt out to me,
Which the Lord has inflicted [on me] on the day of His fierce anger.

“From on high He sent fire into my bones,
And it prevailed over them.
He has spread a net for my feet;
He has turned me back.
He has made me desolate and hopelessly miserable,
Faint all the day long.

“The Lord is righteous and just;
For I have rebelled against His commandment (His word).
Hear now, all you peoples,
And look at my pain;
My virgins and my young men
Have gone into captivity.

“See, O Lord, how distressed I am!
My spirit is deeply disturbed;
My heart is overturned within me and cannot rest,
For I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword kills and bereaves;
In the house there is [famine, disease and] death!

“People have heard that I groan,
That I have no comforter [in You].
All my enemies have heard of my desperation;
They are delighted [O Lord] that You have done it.
Oh, that You would bring the day [of judgment] which You have proclaimed
So that they will become like me.

He has bent His bow like an enemy;
He has set His right hand like an adversary
And slain all that were delightful and pleasing to the eye;
In the tent of the Daughter of Zion
He has poured out His wrath like fire.

The Lord determined to lay in ruins
The [city] wall of the Daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line,
He has not stopped His hand from destroying.
He has caused the rampart and the wall to lament (mourn in grief);
They have languished together.

My eyes fail because of tears [mourns Jeremiah],
My spirit is deeply disturbed;
My heart is poured out on the earth [in grief]
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Jerusalem],
When little ones and infants faint
In the streets of the city.

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?

All who pass along the way
Clap their hands in derision at you;
They scoff and shake their heads
At the Daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
“Is this the city that was called
‘The perfection of beauty,
The joy of all the earth’?”

All your enemies
Have opened their mouths wide against you;
They [scornfully] hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Certainly this is the day for which we waited;
We have reached it, we have seen it!”

The Lord has done what He planned;
He has accomplished His word
Which He commanded from days of old.
He has demolished without sparing,
And He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you;
He has exalted the power of your enemies.

“Arise, cry aloud in the night,
At the beginning of the night watches;
Pour out your heart like water
Before the presence of the Lord;
Lift up your hands to Him
For the life of your little ones
Who are faint from hunger
At the head of every street.”

See, O Lord, and look!
With whom have You dealt this way?
Should women eat their offspring,
The little ones who were born healthy and beautiful?
Should priest and prophet be killed
In the sanctuary of the Lord?

He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away;
He has shattered my bones.

He walled me in so that I cannot get out;
He has weighted down my chain.

Even when I cry out and shout for help,
He shuts out my prayer.

He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
And like a lion [hiding] in secret places.

My soul has been cast far away from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.

It is because of the Lord’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed,
Because His [tender] compassions never fail.

“The Lord is my portion and my inheritance,” says my soul;
“Therefore I have hope in Him and wait expectantly for Him.”

The Lord is good to those who wait [confidently] for Him,
To those who seek Him [on the authority of God’s word].

It is good that one waits quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.

It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke [of godly discipline] in his youth.

Let him put his mouth in the dust [in recognition of his unworthiness];
There may yet be hope.

For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness and tender mercy.

Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass,
Unless the Lord has authorized and commanded it?

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both adversity (misfortune) and good (prosperity, happiness) proceed?

All our enemies have gaped at us.

My eyes [see things that] bring pain to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.

They silenced me in the pit
And placed a stone over me.

I called on Your name, O Lord,
Out of the lowest pit.

You have heard my voice,
“Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,
From my cry for help.”

Look at their sitting and their rising [their actions and secret counsels];
I am their mocking song [the subject of their ridicule].

How dark and dim the gold has become,
How the pure gold has changed!
The sacred stones [of the temple] are poured out and scattered
At the head of every street.

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!

Even the jackals offer the breast,
They nurse their young;
But the daughter of my people has become cruel
Like ostriches in the wilderness [that desert their young].

The tongue of the infant clings
To the roof of its mouth because of thirst;
The little ones ask for food,
But no one gives it to them.

Their appearance is [now] blacker than soot [because of the prolonged famine];
They are not recognized in the streets;
Their skin clings to their bones;
It is withered, and it has become [dry] like wood.

The Lord has fulfilled His wrath;
He has poured out His fierce anger
And has kindled a fire in Zion
That has consumed her foundations.

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

[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.

Our pursuers were swifter
Than the eagles of the sky;
They pursued us on the mountains,
They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness.

O Lord, remember what has come upon us;
Look, and see our reproach (national disgrace)!

We have to pay for our drinking water;
Our wood comes to us at a price.

Servants rule over us;
There is no one to rescue us out of their hand.

We get our bread at the risk of our lives
Because of the sword [of the Arabs] in the wilderness [who may attack if we go out to harvest the crop].

Young men worked at the grinding mill,
And boys fell [staggering] under loads of wood.

Elders are gone from the gate;
Young men from their music.

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