{Daleth} The streets of Zion mourn, because no man cometh to the solemn feasts. All her gates are desolate; her priests make lamentation; her maidens are careful; and she herself is in great heaviness.

{Zayin} Now doth Jerusalem remember the time of her misery and disobedience, yea the joy and pleasure that she hath had in times past: seeing her people is brought down through the power of their enemy, and there is no man for to help her. Her enemies stand looking at her, and laughing her Sabbath days to scorn.

Her uncleanness is in her skirts, She hath not remembered her latter end, And she cometh down wonderfully, There is no comforter for her. See, O Jehovah, mine affliction, For exerted himself hath an enemy.

{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.

ל LamedIs this nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see!
Is there any pain like mine,
which was dealt out to me,
which the Lord made me suffer
on the day of His burning anger?

The Lord hath trodden under foot 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 the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

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

{Pe} Zion casteth out her hands, and there is no man to comfort her. The LORD hath laid the enemies round about Jacob, and Jerusalem is as it were a menstruous woman in the midst of them.

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 are gone into captivity.

I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.

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

(Dalet) He prepared his bow like an enemy; his right hand was ready to shoot. Like a foe he killed everyone, even our strong young men; he has poured out his anger like fire on the tent of Daughter Zion.

The responsible men of the daughter of Zion are seated on the earth without a word; they have put dust on their heads, they are clothed in haircloth: the heads of the virgins of Jerusalem are bent down to the earth.

Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

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.

{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?

All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

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

Thou hast 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 swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

And I said, My strength is perished, and mine expectation from Jehovah.

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

It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

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

Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him;
Let him be filled with reproach.

For the Lord does not give a man up for ever.

For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.

In a man's crushing under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,

To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,

To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.

Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,

Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.

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

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

My voice, thou hast heard, - do not close thine ear to my respite, to mine outcry;

The lips of mine assailants, and their mutterings, are against me, all the day;

The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.

Her ranking men were purer than snow. They were whiter than milk. They were more ruddy in body than rubies. Their polishing was as of sapphire.

They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

Depart ye, they cried unto them, Unclean! depart, depart, touch not! When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, They shall no more sojourn here .

The face of the Lord has sent them in all directions; he will no longer take care of them: they had no respect for the priests, they gave no honour to the old men.

Our heritage is given up to men of strange lands, our houses to those who are not our countrymen.

We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.

Servants have the rule of us, and no man delivereth us out of their hands.

Their hands put princes to death by hanging: the faces of old men were not honoured.

They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.

The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.