She weeps bitterly in the night
And her tears are on her cheeks;
She has none to comfort her
Among all her lovers.
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
They have become her enemies.

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

Her adversaries have become her masters,
Her enemies prosper;
For the Lord has caused her grief
Because of the multitude of her transgressions;
Her little ones have gone away
As captives before the adversary.

All her majesty
Has departed from the daughter of Zion;
Her princes have become like deer
That have found no pasture;
And they have fled without strength
Before the pursuer.

Jerusalem sinned greatly,
Therefore she has become an unclean thing.
All who honored her despise her
Because they have seen her nakedness;
Even she herself groans and turns away.

All her people groan seeking bread;
They have given their precious things for food
To restore their lives themselves.
“See, O Lord, and look,
For I am despised.”

“The yoke of my transgressions is bound;
By His hand they are knit together.
They have come upon my neck;
He has made my strength fail.
The Lord has given me into the hands
Of those against whom I am not able to stand.

“The Lord is righteous;
For I have rebelled against His command;
Hear now, all peoples,
And behold my pain;
My virgins and my young men
Have gone into captivity.

“See, O Lord, for I am in distress;
My spirit is greatly troubled;
My heart is overturned within me,
For I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword slays;
In the house it is like death.

“They have heard that I groan;
There is no one to comfort me;
All my enemies have heard of my calamity;
They are glad that You have done it.
Oh, that You would bring the day which You have proclaimed,
That they may become like me.

“Let all their wickedness come before You;
And deal with them as You have dealt with me
For all my transgressions;
For my groans are many and my heart is faint.”

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

The Lord determined to destroy
The wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line,
He has not restrained His hand from destroying,
And He has caused rampart and wall to lament;
They have languished together.

Her gates have sunk into the ground,
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
The law is no more.
Also, her prophets find
No vision from the Lord.

The elders of the daughter of Zion
Sit on the ground, they are silent.
They have thrown dust on their heads;
They have girded themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
Have bowed their heads to the ground.

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.

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

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

On the ground in the streets
Lie young and old;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered, not sparing.

In dark places He has made me dwell,
Like those who have long been dead.

I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
Their mocking song all the day.

My soul has been rejected from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.

This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”

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

We have transgressed and rebelled,
You have not pardoned.

You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us;
You have slain and have not spared.

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

You have made us mere offscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.

All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

Panic and pitfall have befallen us,
Devastation and destruction;

They have silenced me in the pit
And have placed a stone on me.

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

O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause;
You have redeemed my life.

O Lord, You have seen my oppression;
Judge my case.

You have seen all their vengeance,
All their schemes against me.

You have heard their reproach, O Lord,
All their schemes against me.

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

Yet our eyes failed,
Looking for help was useless;
In our watching we have watched
For a nation that could not save.

We have become orphans without a father,
Our mothers are like widows.

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

We have submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

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

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

Unless You have utterly rejected us
And are exceedingly angry with us.