How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! She that was great among the nations is become as a widow; the princess among the provinces is become tributary!

Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; she dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest: all her pursuers have overtaken her within the straits.

The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly: all her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are in grief; and as for her, she is in bitterness.

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

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore is she removed as an impurity: all that honoured her despise her because they have seen her nakedness; and she sigheth, and turneth backward.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, whom Jehovah hath afflicted in the day of his fierce anger.

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

The Lord hath cast down all my mighty men in the midst of me; he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord hath trodden as a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.

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

Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort her; Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him; Jerusalem is as an impurity among them.

Jehovah is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment. Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow. My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

See, Jehovah, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled; my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled: without, the sword hath bereaved me, within, it is as death.

Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

He hath bent his bow like an enemy; he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and hath slain all that was pleasant to the eye: in the tent of the daughter of Zion, he hath poured out his fury like fire.

The Lord is become as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel; he hath swallowed up all her palaces; he hath destroyed his strongholds, and hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

And he hath violently cast down his enclosure as a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused set feast and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger king and priest.

The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath rejected his sanctuary; he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: they have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as on the day of a set feast.

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

Mine eyes are consumed with tears, my bowels are troubled; my liver is poured upon the earth, because of the ruin of the daughter of my people; because infant and suckling swoon in the streets of the city.

They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city; when they pour out their soul into their mothers' bosom.

What shall I take to witness for thee? what shall I liken unto thee, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, virgin daughter of Zion? For thy ruin is great as the sea: who will heal thee?

All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and shake their head at the daughter of Jerusalem: Is this the city which they called, The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

All thine enemies open their mouth against thee, they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up; this is forsooth the day that we looked for: we have found, we have seen it.

Thou hast called up, as on the day of a set feast, my terrors on every side; and in the day of Jehovah's anger there was none that escaped or remained: those that I have nursed and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

He hath made me to dwell in dark places as those that have been long dead.

He is unto me as a bear lying in wait, a lion in secret places.

He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

And I said, My strength is perished, and my hope in Jehovah.

My soul hath them constantly in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

It is of Jehovah's loving-kindness we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not;

they are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

Jehovah is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

It is good that one should both wait, and that in silence, for the salvation of Jehovah.

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth:

he giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him; he is filled full with reproach.

Who is he that saith, and there cometh to pass, what the Lord hath not commanded?

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Jehovah.

Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.

Thou hast covered thyself with anger, and pursued us; thou hast slain, thou hast not spared.

Thou hast made us the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.

All our enemies have opened their mouth against us.

Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and ruin.

How is the gold become dim! the most pure gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary poured out at the top of all the streets!

The sons of Zion, so precious, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

Even the jackals offer the breast, they give suck to their young; the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

And the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the reward of the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were violently laid upon her.

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their figure was as sapphire.

Their visage is darker than blackness, they are not known in the streets; their skin cleaveth to their bones, it is withered, it is become like a stick.

It is for the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, who have shed the blood of the righteous in the midst of her.

They hunted our steps, that we could not go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; they chased us hotly upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.

Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz: the cup shall pass also unto thee; thou shalt be drunken, and make thyself naked.

The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity. He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.

Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us; consider, and see our reproach.

Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.

We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

Our water have we to drink for money, our wood cometh unto us for a price.

Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their hand.

The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

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

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

Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: foxes walk over it.

Thou, Jehovah, dwellest for ever; thy throne is from generation to generation.

Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, dost thou forsake us so long time?

Turn thou us unto thee, Jehovah, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

Or is it that thou hast utterly rejected us? Wouldest thou be exceeding wroth against us?