(Bet) She weeps bitterly at night; tears stream down her cheeks. She has no one to comfort her among all her lovers. All her friends have betrayed 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 her masters,
Her enemies prosper;
For the Lord has caused her grief
Because of the multitude of her transgressions;
Her young children have gone
Into captivity before the enemy.

All her beauty and majesty
Have departed from the Daughter of Zion (Jerusalem).
Her princes have become like deer
That have found no pasture;
They have fled without strength
Before the 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.

(Khet) Jerusalem committed terrible sin; therefore she became an object of scorn. All who admired her have despised her because they have seen her nakedness. She groans aloud and turns away in shame.

The hand of her hater is stretched out over all her desired things; for she has seen that the nations have come into her holy place, about whom you gave orders that they were not to come into the meeting of your people.

"Look, O Lord! Consider that I have become worthless!"

A watch is kept on my sins; they are joined together by his hand, they have come on to my neck; he has made my strength give way: the Lord has given me up into the hands of those against whom I have no power.

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.

(Pe) Zion spread out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The Lord has issued a decree against Jacob; his neighbors have become his enemies. Jerusalem has become like filthy garbage in their midst.

(Tsade) The Lord is right to judge me! Yes, I rebelled against his commands. Please listen, all you nations, and look at my suffering! My young women and men have gone into exile.

I called to my lovers, they, deceived me, My priests and mine elders, in the city, have breathed their last, - for they sought them food, that they might bring back their life.

“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!

(Sin/Shin) They have heard that I groan, yet there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have brought it about. Bring about the day of judgment that you promised so that they may end up like me!

(Tav) Let all their wickedness come before you; afflict them just as you have afflicted me because of all my acts of rebellion. For my groans are many, and my heart is sick with sorrow.

How could My Lord, in his anger, enshroud in gloom, the daughter of Zion? have cast from the heavens to the earth, the beauty of Israel? and not have remembered his footstool, in the day of his anger?

The Lord has rejected His altar;
He has abandoned His sanctuary.
He has given into the hand of the enemy
The walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord
As on a day of an appointed feast.

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.

(Tet) Her city gates have fallen to the ground; he smashed to bits the bars that lock her gates. Her king and princes were taken into exile; there is no more guidance available. As for her prophets, they no longer receive a vision from the Lord.

(Yod) The elders of Daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dirt on their heads; They have dressed in sackcloth. Jerusalem's young women stare down at the ground.

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,

Your prophets have seen (imagined) for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not exposed your wickedness
To restore you from captivity [by teaching you to repent],
But they have seen (imagined) and declared to you false and misleading oracles.

All passing by, have clapped, over thee, their hands, have hissed and wagged their head over the daughter of Jerusalem, - saying , Is, this, the city, of which men used to say - The perfection of beauty! A joy to the whole earth!

(Pe) All your enemies gloated over you. They sneered and gnashed their teeth; they said, "We have destroyed her! Ha! We have waited a long time for this day. We have lived to see it!"

Their heart cried out to the Lord,
“O wall of the daughter of Zion,
Let your tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief,
Let your eyes have no rest.

(Resh) Look, O Lord! Consider! Whom have you ever afflicted like this? Should women eat their offspring, their healthy infants? Should priest and prophet be killed in the Lord's sanctuary?

(Sin/Shin) The young boys and old men lie dead on the ground in the streets. My young women and my young men have fallen by the sword. You killed them when you were angry; you slaughtered them without mercy.

You [Lord] called as in the day of an appointed feast
My terrors (dangers) on every side;
And there was no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those I have cared for and brought up with tenderness,
My enemy annihilated them.

{Aleph} I am the man, that, through the rod of his wrath, have experience of misery.

By him I have been made to go in the dark where there is no light.

My flesh and my skin have been used up by him and my bones broken.

He has kept me in dark places, like those who 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 become the laughingstock of all people, their mocking song all day long.

By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust.

I am deprived of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is.

So I said, "My endurance has expired; I have lost all hope of deliverance from the Lord."

I continually remember them
and have become depressed.

But this I call to mind; therefore I have hope:

It is through the Lord's love that we have not come to destruction, because his mercies have no limit.

"My portion is the Lord," I have said to myself, so I will put my hope in him.

Let him offer his cheek to the one who hits him; let him have his fill of insults.

For though he sends grief, still he will have pity in the full measure of his love.

Who can speak a thing and have it come to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?

"We have blatantly rebelled; you have not forgiven."

You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us;
You have slain [without pity] and have not spared.

You have covered Yourself with a cloud
So that no prayer can pass through.

You have made us scum and refuse
Among the peoples (Gentile nations).

(Pe) All our enemies have gloated over us;

Panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction.

My eyes are streaming without stopping, they have no rest,

Without cause my enemies
Hunted me down like a bird;

They have put an end to my life in the prison, stoning me with stones.

Flowed have waters over my head, I have said, I have been cut off.

(Qof) I have called on your name, O Lord, from the deepest pit.

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

You came near in the day when I made my prayer to you: you said, Have no fear.

O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause [You have guided my way and protected me];
You have rescued and redeemed my life.

You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord; pronounce judgment on my behalf!

You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.

(Sin/Shin) You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me.

(Tav) Pay them back what they deserve, O Lord, according to what they have done.

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.

Even the beasts of the waste land have full breasts, they give milk to their young ones: the daughter of my people has become cruel like the ostriches in the waste land.

The tongue of the suckling, cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst, - Young children, have asked bread, there was none, to break, it to them.

They who used to eat delicacies, are deserted in the streets, - They who used to be carried on crimson, have embraced heaps of refuse.

Their face is blacker than night; in the streets no one has knowledge of them: their skin is hanging on their bones, they are dry, they have become like 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 compassionate women
Boiled their own children;
They became food for them
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Judah].

{Lamed} Neither the kings of the earth, nor all the inhabiters of the world, would have believed that the enemy and adversary should have come in at the gates of the city of Jerusalem.

Because of the sins of her prophets
And the iniquities of her priests,
Who have shed in her midst
The blood of the righteous;

They have wandered - blind - in the streets, have defiled themselves with blood; so that men may not touch their garments.

(Samek) People cry to them, "Turn away! You are unclean! Turn away! Turn away! Don't touch us!" So they have fled and wander about; but the nations say, "They may not stay here any longer."

The face of Yahweh, hath scattered them, He will look them out no more: The persons of the priests, they have not respected, To the elders, have they shown no favour.

[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.

They have laid snares for our steps, that we cannot walk in our own broadways: Drawn near hath our end, Fulfilled are our days, yea arrived hath our end.

Swifter are our pursuers, than the eagles of the heavens, - Over the mountains, have they come hotly after us, In the wilderness, have they lain in wait for us.

Have joy and be glad, O daughter of Edom, living in the land of Uz: the cup will be given to you in your turn, and you will be overcome with wine and your shame will be seen.

{The Prayer of Jeremiah} Call to remembrance, O LORD, what we have suffered; consider and see our confusion.

We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers have become widows.

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

We are pursued -- they are breathing down our necks; we are weary and have no rest.

We have submitted to Egypt and Assyria in order to buy food to eat.

Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
It is we who have carried their sin.

Servants have the rule of us, and no man delivereth us out of their hands.

We have to get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

They have ravished the women in Zion, the maids in the cities of Judah.

The princes are hanged up with the hand of the enemies; they have not spared the old sage men;

they have taken young men's lives from them, and the boys are hanged up upon trees.

The elders are gone from the city gate; the young men have stopped playing their music.

Our hearts no longer have any joy; our dancing is turned to mourning.

The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!

For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes have grown dim,

Because of Mount Zion, which is desolate, jackals, have gone prowling therein.

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

unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.