The roads of Zion are in mourning
Because no one comes to the appointed feasts.
All her gates are desolate;
Her priests are groaning,
Her virgins are afflicted,
And she herself is bitter.

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.

“Is it nothing to 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 inflicted on the day of His fierce anger.

“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 has rejected all my strong men
In my midst;
He has called an appointed time against me
To crush my young men;
The Lord has trodden as in a wine press
The virgin daughter of Judah.

“For these things I weep;
My eyes run down with water;
Because far from me is a comforter,
One who restores my soul.
My children are desolate
Because the enemy has prevailed.”

Zion stretches out her hands;
There is no one to comfort her;
The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob
That the ones round about him should be his adversaries;
Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

“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.

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.

My eyes fail because of tears,
My spirit is greatly troubled;
My heart is poured out on the earth
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
When little ones and infants faint
In the streets of the city.

They say to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their life is poured out
On their mothers’ bosom.

How shall I admonish you?
To what shall I compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what shall I liken you as I comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can heal you?

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 who pass along the way
Clap their hands in derision at you;
They hiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem,
“Is this the city of which they said,
‘The perfection of beauty,
A joy to all the earth’?”

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.”

You called as in the day of an appointed feast
My terrors on every side;
And there was no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those whom I bore and reared,
My enemy annihilated them.

He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.

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

Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.

They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

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

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.

It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the Lord.

It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke in his youth.

Let him put his mouth in the dust,
Perhaps there is hope.

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

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both good and ill go forth?

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

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

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;

The precious sons of Zion,
Weighed against fine gold,
How they are regarded as earthen jars,
The work of a potter’s hands!

For the iniquity of the daughter of my people
Is greater than the sin of Sodom,
Which was overthrown as in a moment,
And no hands were turned toward her.

Their appearance is blacker than soot,
They are not recognized in the streets;
Their skin is shriveled on their bones,
It is withered, it has become like wood.

“Depart! Unclean!” they cried of themselves.
“Depart, depart, do not touch!”
So they fled and wandered;
Men among the nations said,
“They shall not continue to dwell with us.”

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

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
Who dwells in the land of Uz;
But the cup will come around to you as well,
You will become drunk and make yourself naked.

Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
Look, and see our reproach!

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

Our pursuers are at our necks;
We are worn out, there is no rest for us.

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

Slaves rule over us;
There is no one to deliver us from their hand.

Our skin has become as hot as an oven,
Because of the burning heat of famine.

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

Because of this our heart is faint,
Because of these things our eyes are dim;

You, O Lord, rule forever;
Your throne is from generation to generation.

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

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

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