The roads that lead to Zion are in mourning, because no one travels to the festivals. All her gates are desolate; her priests are moaning. Her young women are grieving, and she is bitter.

Fled from cherished Zion are all that were her splendor. Her princes have become like deer that cannot find their feeding grounds. They flee with strength exhausted from their pursuers.

The adversary seized in his hands everything she valued. She watched the nations enter her sanctuary; those you forbade to enter your place of meeting.

Because of all this, I weep; my eyes stream with tears because far from me is the comforter of my soul. My children are sorrowful, because the enemy has won.

Zion spreads out her hands; no one is there to comfort her. The LORD has issued an order against Jacob, that all who are around him are to be his enemies; Jerusalem has become unclean among them.

Look, LORD, how distressed I am; all my insides are churning. My heart is troubled within me, because I vigorously rebelled. Outside the sword brings loss of life, while at home death rules.

May all of their wickedness come to your attention, and deal with them as you have done with me because of all my transgressions. For I am constantly groaning, and my heart is faint.

The Lord rejected his altar, disavowing his sanctuary. He gave up her palace walls to the control of the enemy. They shouted in the LORD's Temple, as though they were attending a day of celebration.

My eyes are worn out from crying, my insides are churning, My emotions pour out in grief because my people are destroyed Children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

They ask their mothers, "Is there anything to eat or drink?" They faint in the streets of the city like wounded men. Their life ebbs away while they lie on their mother's bosom.

What can be said about you? To what should you be compared, fair Jerusalem? To what may I liken you, so I may comfort you, fair one of Zion? Indeed, your wound is as deep as the sea who can heal you?

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.

All of your enemies insult you with gaping mouths. They hiss and grind their teeth while saying, "We have devoured her completely. Yes, this is the day that we anticipated! We found it at last; we have seen it!"

The LORD did what he planned. He carried out his threat. Just as he commanded long ago, he has torn down without pity; He let the enemy boast about you and has exalted the power of your enemies.

Cry out from your heart to the Lord, wall of fair Zion! Let your tears run down like a river day and night. Allow yourself no rest, and don't stop crying.

Get up and cry aloud in the night, at the beginning of every hour. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord! Lift up your hands toward him for the lives of your children, who are fainting away at every street corner.

Young men and the aged lie on the ground in the streets; my young women and young men have fallen by the sword. You killed them in your anger, slaughtering them without pity.

You have invited those who terrorize me to come around, as if today were a festival. No one has escaped or survived the time of the LORD's anger. My enemy has finished off those whom I cuddled and raised.

He has forced me to live in darkness, like those who are long dead.

He bent his bow, aiming at me with his arrow.

He caused his war arrows to pierce my vital organs.

Because of the LORD's gracious love we are not consumed, since his compassions never end.

They are new every morning great is your faithfulness!

For he does not deliberately hurt or grieve human beings.

When any of the prisoners of the earth are crushed underfoot,

when a person's rights are perverted in defiance of the Most High.

Let us examine our lifestyles, putting them to the test, and turn back to the LORD.

Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven.

All our enemies jeer at us with gaping mouths.

I called on your name, LORD, from the depths of the Pit,

You heard my voice don't close your ear to my sighs and cries.

LORD, you observed how I have been wronged; now make your ruling in my case.

Watch! Whether they sit down or stand up, they mock me with their songs.

Give them an anguished heart; may your curse be upon them!

Pursue them in your anger and destroy them from under the LORD's heaven.

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

Even wild animals nurse, suckling their young; but the women of my people are cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness.

Those who enjoyed delicacies lie desolate in the streets. Those who were reared wearing purple scavenge in piles of trash.

Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk. Their bodies were more ruddy than rubies, their beards like the color of precious stones.

Now their faces are blacker than coal; they are unrecognized in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones; it has become dry like a stick.

Those who die by the sword are better off than those who die from starvation, who slowly waste away like those pierced through for lack of food from the fields.

With their own hands, compassionate women boil their own children they become their food when my beloved people were destroyed.

Our eyes failed, searching in vain for hope; we kept watching and looking for a nation that would not help.

Our steps were closely stalked, so we couldn't travel on our own streets. Our end is near, our days are over; indeed, our end has come.

Our pursuers were swifter than soaring eagles; they pursued us over the mountains, lying in wait for us in the wilderness.

The LORD's anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. About him we had said, "Under his protection we will survive among the nations."

The punishment for your sin is complete, you women of Zion, and God will no longer exile you. He will punish your iniquity, you women of Edom, and he will expose your sins.

LORD, remember what has happened to us. Pay attention, and look at our shame!

Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, and our homes to foreigners.

We are now orphans without fathers and our mothers are like widows.

We pay to drink our own water, and our own wood is sold to us at high price.

Our pursuers breathe down our necks; we are weary, but there is no rest for us.

Our ancestors sinned and no longer exist yet we continue to bear the consequences of their sin.

We risk our lives to obtain our food, facing death in the desert.

Our skin blisters as from an oven, due to ravaging blasts of the famine.

Our young men must grind grain with a millstone; our youths stumble under the weight of wood.

Our elders have ceased ruling at the gate; our young men have abandoned their music.

The joy of our hearts has ceased, and our dancing has turned into dirges.

The crown has fallen from our head woe to us, because we have sinned!

This is why our hearts faint, and why our eyes grow dim:

You, LORD, are forever your throne endures from generation to generation.

Restore us to yourself, LORD, so that we may return. Renew our days as before,

unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us without limit.