{Aleph} Alas, how sitteth the city so desolate, that some time was full of people? How is she become like a widow, which was the lady of all nations? How is she brought under tribute, that ruled all lands?

{Vav} All the beauty of the daughter of Zion is away, her princes are become like harts that find no pasture. They are driven away before their enemy, so that they have no more power.

{Khaf} All her people seek their bread with heaviness, and look: what precious things every man hath, that giveth he for meat to save his life. Consider, O LORD, and see, how vile I am become.

{Lamed} O ye all that go fore by, behold and see, if there be any sorrow like unto mine. wherewith the LORD hath troubled me in the day of his fearful wrath.

{Samekh} The LORD hath destroyed all the mighty men, that were in me. He hath proclaimed a feast, to slaughter all my best men. The LORD hath trodden down the daughter of Judah, like as it were in a wine press.

{Res} Consider, O LORD, how I am troubled: my womb is disquieted, my heart turneth about in me, and I am full of heaviness. The sword hurteth me without, and within I am like unto death.

{Shin} They hear my mourning, but there is none that will comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble, and are glad thereof, because thou hast done it. But thou shalt bring forth the time, when they also shall be like unto me.

{Daleth} He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath fastened his righthand as an adversary: and everything that was pleasant to see, he hath smitten it down. He hath poured out his wrath like a fire, into the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion.

{He} The LORD is become like as it were an enemy: he hath cast down Israel and all his places. Yea, all his strongholds hath he destroyed, and filled the daughter of Judah with much sorrow and heaviness.

{Vav} Her tabernacle - which was like a garden of pleasure - hath he destroyed; her high solemn feasts hath he put down. The LORD hath brought it so to pass, that the high solemn feasts and Sabbaths in Zion are clean forgotten. In his heavy displeasure hath he made the king and priests to be despised.

{Lamed} Even when they spake to their mothers, "Where is meat and drink?" For while they so said, they fell down in the streets of the city, like as they had been wounded, and some died in their mothers' bosom.

{Mem} What shall I say of thee, O thou daughter Jerusalem? To whom shall I liken thee? To whom shall I compare thee, O thou daughter Zion, to comfort thee withal? Thy hurt is like a main sea: who may heal thee?

{Tsadi} Let thine heart cry unto the LORD, O thou city of the daughter Zion; let thy tears run down like a river day and night. Rest not, and let not the apple of thine eye leave off.

{Kuf} Stand up and make thy prayer in the first watch of the night; pour out thine heart like water before the LORD. Lift up thine hands for the lives of thy young children that die of hunger in the streets.

{Daleth} He layeth wait for me like a Bear, and as a lion in a hole.

{Nun} Let us look well upon our own ways, and remember ourselves, and turn again to the LORD.

O LORD, when will thou look down from heaven, and consider?

{Tsadi} Mine enemies hunted me out sharply, like a bird; yea, and that without a cause.

{Beth} The children of Zion that were always in honour, and clothed with the most precious gold: how are they now become like the earthen vessels which be made with the potter's hand?

{Gimel} The Dragons give their young ones suck with bare breasts: but the daughter of my people is cruel, and dwelleth in the wilderness like the Ostriches.

{Zayin} Her abstainers were whiter than the snow or milk: their colour was fresh red as the Coral, their beauty like the Sapphire.

{Khet} But now their faces are very black: Insomuch, that thou shouldest not know them in the streets. Their skin cleaveth to their bones; It is withered, and become like a dry stock.

{Ayin} The countenance of the LORD hath banished them, and shall never look more upon them: For they themselves neither regarded the priests, nor pitied the elders.

{Pe} Wherefore yet our eyes fail us, while we look for vain help: seeing we be ever waiting upon a people that can do us no good.