How solitary and lonely sits the city [Jerusalem]
That was [once] full of people!
How like a widow she has become.
She who was great among the nations!
The princess among the provinces,
Has become a forced laborer!

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

Her (ceremonial) uncleanness was on her skirts;
She did not [seriously] consider her future.
Therefore she has come down [from throne to slavery] in an astonishing manner;
She has no comforter.
“O Lord” [cries Jerusalem], “look at my affliction,
For the enemy has magnified himself [in triumph]!”

All her people groan, they are searching for bread. They give their treasures for food, to bring back life. See, O Yahweh, and look, [how] I am despised.

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, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

(Nun) My sins are bound around my neck like a yoke; they are fastened together by his hand. He has placed his yoke on my neck; he has sapped my strength. The Lord has handed me over to those whom I cannot resist.

The Lord has rejected all my mighty ones in my midst. He called an assembly against me, to crush my young men; [like in] a wine press, the Lord has trodden [on] the virgin daughter of Judah.

Zion's hands are outstretched; she has no comforter; the Lord has given orders to the attackers of Jacob round about him: Jerusalem has become like an unclean thing 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 Yahweh, that {I am in distress}; {my stomach} is in torment, my heart has turned inside me because I have certainly rebelled. From outside a sword brings bereavement, inside the house [it is] like death.

They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.

He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

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

The Lord has become like an enemy;
He has swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all its palaces;
He has destroyed its strongholds
And multiplied in the Daughter of Judah
Mourning and lamentation (expressions of grief).

And He has violently broken down His temple like a [fragile] garden hedge;
He has destroyed His appointed meeting place.
The Lord has caused the appointed feast and Sabbath
To be forgotten in Zion
And has despised and rejected the king and the priest
In the indignation of His anger.

The Lord hath cast off His altar, He hath rejected His sanctuary, He hath shut up into the hand of the enemy The walls of her palaces, A noise they have made in the house of Jehovah Like a day of appointment.

(Tet) Her city gates have fallen to the ground; he smashed to bits the bars that lock her gates. Her king and princes were taken into exile; there is no more guidance available. As for her prophets, they no longer receive a vision from the Lord.

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.

What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?

Your prophets look on your behalf; they see false and deceptive visions. They did not expose your sins in order to restore what had been captured. Instead, they crafted oracles for you that are false and misleading.

Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

See, O Jehovah, and look attentively, To whom Thou hast acted thus, Do women eat their fruit, infants of a handbreadth? Slain in the sanctuary of the Lord are priest and prophet?

Wilt thou proclaim, like the day of an appointed meeting - My terrors round about? when there was not - in the day of the anger of Yahweh - fugitive or survivor, - Those whom I dandled and reared, my foe hath destroyed.

He has made me live in dark places
Like those who have long been dead.

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

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

You have made us like waste and that for which there is no use, among the peoples.

Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.

Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.

Look at their sitting and their rising [their actions and secret counsels];
I am their mocking song [the subject of their ridicule].

Though the precious people of Zion were like fine gold, how they are valued like clay vessels, the handiwork of a potter!

Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

ז ZayinHer dignitaries were brighter than snow,
whiter than milk;
their bodies were more ruddy than coral,
their appearance like sapphire.

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

ט TetThose slain by the sword are better off
than those slain by hunger,
who waste away, pierced with pain
because the fields lack produce.

They are wandering like blind men in the streets, they are made unclean with blood, so that their robes may not be touched by men.

The presence of the Lord scattered them [among the nations];
He will not continue to look after them.
They did not honor the priests;
They did not favor 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.

Remember, O Jehovah, what hath befallen us, Look attentively, and see our reproach.

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

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

Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.