The roads to Zion are in mourning
Because no one comes to the appointed feasts.
All her gates are desolate;
Her priests are groaning,
Her virgins are grieved and suffering,
And she suffers bitterly.

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.

“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.

“The yoke of my transgressions is bound;
By His hand they are knit and woven together.
They have come upon my neck.
He has made my strength fail;
The Lord has put me into the hand
Of those against whom I cannot stand.

“The Lord has rejected all the strong men
In my midst;
He has proclaimed an established time against me
To crush my young men.
The Lord has trampled down as in a wine press
The Virgin Daughter of Judah.

“I weep for these things;
My eyes overflow with tears,
Because a comforter,
One who could restore my soul, is far away from me.
My children are desolate and perishing,
For the enemy has prevailed.”

Zion stretches out her hands,
But there is no comforter for her.
The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob
That his neighbors should be his enemies;
Jerusalem has become a filthy thing [an object of contempt] among them.

“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!

“Let all their wickedness come before You;
And deal with them as You have dealt with me
Because of 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 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.

Her gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are [exiled] among the nations;
The law is no more.
Also, her prophets no longer find
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.

They cry to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their life [slips away and] is poured out
In their mothers’ arms.

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!”

Their hearts 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.

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.

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

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

He has bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.

So I say, “My strength has perished
And so has my hope and expectation from the Lord.”

My soul continually remembers them
And is bowed down within me.

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

They are new every morning;
Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.

“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.

To deprive a man of justice
In the presence of the Most High,

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?

Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Complain [of punishment] in view of his sins?

Let us test and examine our ways,
And let us return to the Lord.

Let us lift up our hearts and our hands [in prayer]
Toward God in heaven;

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

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

All our enemies have gaped at us.

Panic and pitfall (traps, danger) have come on us,
Devastation and destruction.

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!

For the [punishment of the] wickedness of the daughter of my people [Jerusalem]
Is greater than the [punishment for the] sin of Sodom,
Which was overthrown in a moment,
And no hands were turned toward her [to offer help].

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.

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

People cried to them, “Go away! Unclean!
Depart! Depart! Do not touch!”
So they fled, then they wandered [as fugitives];
People among the nations said,
“They shall not stay here any longer with us.”

[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.

The enemy hunted our steps,
So that we could not walk in our streets;
Our end drew near,
Our days were finished
For our end had come.

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.

Rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Edom,
Who lives in the land of Uz.
But the cup [of the wine of God’s wrath] will pass to you as well;
You will become drunk and make yourself naked.

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.

We have given the hand [as a pledge of fidelity and submission] to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

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

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

The joy of our hearts has ended;
Our dancing has been turned into mourning.

The crown has fallen from our head [our honor is covered with dust]!
Woe to us, for we have sinned!

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

Why do You forget us forever?
Why do You forsake us so long?

Return us to You, O Lord, so that we may be restored;
Renew our days as of old,

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