“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.

“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.

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.

On the ground in the streets
Lie young and old;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered, not sparing.

I am the man who has seen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.

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

For He does not afflict willingly
Or grieve the sons of men.

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

To defraud a man in his lawsuit—
Of these things the Lord does not approve.

Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer complaint in view of his sins?

“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.”

Young men worked at the grinding mill,
And youths stumbled under loads of wood.

Elders are gone from the gate,
Young men from their music.