Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembers not her latter end; therefore she came down awesomely: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy has magnified himself.

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

From above has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them: he has spread a net for my feet, he has turned me back: he has made me desolate and faint all the day.

The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are woven together, and come up upon my neck: he has made my strength to fall, the Lord has delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.

The Lord has trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he has called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord has trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and my elders died in the city, while they sought their food to relieve their souls.

Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my soul is troubled; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is as death.

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

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

My eyes do fail with tears, my soul is troubled, my heart is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the infants faint in the streets of the city.

What thing shall I take to witness for you? what thing shall I liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? for your run is vast as the sea: who can heal you?

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have slain them in the day of your anger; you have killed, and not pitied.

You have called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have cared for and brought up has my enemy consumed.

He has led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

Surely against me has he turned; he turns his hand against me all the day.

My flesh and my skin has he made old: he has broken my bones.

He has besieged me, and surrounded me with gall and travail.

He has set me in dark places, like they that are long dead.

He has hedged me in, that I cannot get out: he has made my chain heavy.

Also when I cry and shout, he shuts out my prayer.

He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone, he has made my paths crooked.

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

He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he has made me desolate.

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

He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my heart.

I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.

He has filled me with bitterness, he has made me drunk with wormwood.

He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he has covered me with ashes.

And you have removed my soul far off from peace: I forgot prosperity.

And I said, My strength and my hope has perished from the LORD:

Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

My soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

He puts his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.

My eye runs down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

My eye flows down, and ceases not, without any intermission,

My eye affects my heart because of all the daughters of my city.

My enemies chased me hard, like a bird, without cause.

They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off.

You have heard my voice: hide not your ear at my breathing, at my cry.

O Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life.

O LORD, you have seen my wrong: judge you my cause.

You have seen all their vengeance and all their plots against me.

You have heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their plots against me;

The lips of those that rose up against me, and their whispering against me all the day.

Even the jackals draw out the breast, they nurse their young ones: the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, with no hands laid on her.

The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children: they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.