ב BetShe weeps aloud during the night,
with tears on her cheeks.
There is no one to offer her comfort,
not one from all her lovers.
All her friends have betrayed her;
they have become her enemies.

Judah has gone into exile under affliction
And under harsh servitude;
She dwells among the [pagan] nations,
But she has found no rest;
All her pursuers have overtaken her
In the midst of [her] distress.

The ways of Zion mourn from none coming to the appointment: all her gates being desolated: her priests groaning, her virgins grieved, and it is bitterness to her.

And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

Jerusalem remembereth in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her, The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations.

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]!”

All her people sighing, seeking bread; they gave from their delights for food to turn back the soul: see, O Jehovah, and regard; for I was despised.

From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.

For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

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.

{Tav} From thee shall come all their adversity: thou shalt pluck them away, even as thou hast plucked me, because of all my wickedness. For my sorrow is very great, and my heart is heavy.

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

And he has violently taken away his tent, as from a garden; he has made waste his meeting-place: the Lord has taken away the memory of feast and Sabbath in Zion, and in the passion of his wrath he is against king and priest.

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.

The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.

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.

Your prophets have seen for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not exposed your iniquity
So as to restore you from captivity,
But they have seen for you false and misleading oracles.

Jehovah hath done what he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word which he had commanded from the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not spared, and he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

Cry out from your heart to the Lord, wall of fair Zion! Let your tears run down like a river day and night. Allow yourself no rest, and don't stop crying.

Arise, cry out in the night, in the beginning of the watches; pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, who faint from hunger at the top of all the streets.

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!

(Alef) I am the man who has experienced affliction from the rod of his wrath.

Surely He has turned His hand against me
Repeatedly all the day.

And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.

And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:

It is good to wait quietly
for deliverance from the Lord.

O how good is it, for a man, to take the yoke upon him from his youth up?

For He does not afflict willingly and from His heart
Or grieve the children of men.

From the mouth of the Most High Go not forth the evils and the good.

You have wrapped Yourself with a cloud from any prayer passing through.

Rivers of water are running down from my eyes, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

My tears pour down ceaselessly; I am far from relief

Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.

I called Thy name, O Jehovah, from the lower pit.

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

Watch them from morning to evening; I am the object of their mocking songs.

Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.

ד DaletThe nursing infant’s tongue
clings to the roof of his mouth from thirst.
Little children beg for bread,
but no one gives them any.

Purer were her Nazarites than snow, Whiter than milk, ruddier of body than rubies, Of sapphire their form.

Their form dark above blackness; they were not known in the streets: their skin adhered to their bones; it was dried up, it was as wood.

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.

From the sins of her prophets the iniquities of her priests shedding the blood of the just in her midst,

ע AyinAll the while our eyes were failing
as we looked in vain for assistance;
we watched from our towers
for a nation that refused to help.

They have hunted our steps from going in our broad-places, Near hath been our end, fulfilled our days, For come hath our end.

Completed is thy punishment, O daughter of Zion, He will no more carry thee away captive - He hath punished thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he hath stripped the veil from off thy sins.

Servants have ruled over us, A deliverer there is none from their hand.

With our souls we shall bring our bread from the face of the sword of the desert

Our skin is as hot as [the heat of] an oven
Because of the burning heat of [the fever of] famine.

The young men perform menial labor; boys stagger from their labor.

The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.

The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!

Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.

Why have we gone from your memory for ever? why have you been turned away from us for so long?