{Beth} She weepeth sore in the night, so that the tears run down her cheeks: for among all her lovers, there is none that giveth her any comfort. Yea, her next friends transgress against her, and are become her enemies.

{Gimel} Judah is taken prisoner, because she was defiled: and for serving so many strange gods, she dwelleth now among the heathen. She findeth no rest: all they that persecuted her, took her in strait places where she could not escape.

{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.

{He} Her enemies have been rulers over her, and have prospered: because the LORD hath chastened her for her great wickedness. Her children are led away captive before their enemy.

{Vav} All the beauty of the daughter of Zion is away, her princes are become like harts that find no pasture. They are driven away before their enemy, so that they have no more power.

{Tet} Her skirts are defiled, she remembered not what would follow: therefore is her fall so great, and there is no man to comfort her. O LORD, consider my trouble, for my enemy hath the upper hand.

{Samekh} The LORD hath destroyed all the mighty men, that were in me. He hath proclaimed a feast, to slaughter all my best men. The LORD hath trodden down the daughter of Judah, like as it were in a wine press.

{Ayin} Therefore do I weep, and mine eyes gush out of water: for the comforter that should quicken me is far from me. My children are driven away. For why? The enemy hath gotten the over hand.

{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.

{Tsadi} The LORD is righteous, for I provoked his countenance unto anger. O take heed all ye people, and consider my heaviness: My maidens and my young men are led away in to captivity.

{Shin} They hear my mourning, but there is none that will comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble, and are glad thereof, because thou hast done it. But thou shalt bring forth the time, when they also shall be like unto me.

{He} The LORD is become like as it were an enemy: he hath cast down Israel and all his places. Yea, all his strongholds hath he destroyed, and filled the daughter of Judah with much sorrow and heaviness.

{Vav} Her tabernacle - which was like a garden of pleasure - hath he destroyed; her high solemn feasts hath he put down. The LORD hath brought it so to pass, that the high solemn feasts and Sabbaths in Zion are clean forgotten. In his heavy displeasure hath he made the king and priests to be despised.

{Tet} Her ports are cast down to the ground, her bars are broken and smitten in sunder: her king and princes are carried away to the gentiles. They have neither law nor Prophets, nor yet any vision from the LORD.

{Lamed} Even when they spake to their mothers, "Where is meat and drink?" For while they so said, they fell down in the streets of the city, like as they had been wounded, and some died in their mothers' bosom.

{Shin} Young and old lie behind the streets, upon the ground; my maidens and young men are slain with the sword: whom thou in the day of thy wrathful indignation hast put to death. Yea, even thou hast put them to death, and not spared them.

{Tav} My neighbours that are round about me hast thou called, as it were to a feast day: so that in the day of the LORD's wrath none escaped, neither was any left behind. Those that I had brought up and nourished, hath mine enemy destroyed.

He hath bent his bow, and made me as it were a mark to shoot at.

{Khet} Namely, that the mercies of the LORD are not clean gone, and that his loving-kindness ceaseth not.

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

Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto the God that is in heaven.

Thou hast hid thyself in a cloud, that our prayer should not go through.

{Ayin} All our enemies gape upon us.

Thou hast well considered how they go about to do me harm, and that all their counsels are against me.

{Beth} The children of Zion that were always in honour, and clothed with the most precious gold: how are they now become like the earthen vessels which be made with the potter's hand?

{He} They that were wont to fair delicately, perish in the streets; they that afore were brought up in purple, make now much of dung.

{Zayin} Her abstainers were whiter than the snow or milk: their colour was fresh red as the Coral, their beauty like the Sapphire.

{Khet} But now their faces are very black: Insomuch, that thou shouldest not know them in the streets. Their skin cleaveth to their bones; It is withered, and become like a dry stock.

{Tet} They that be slain with the sword, are happier than such as die of hunger, and perish away famishing for the fruits of the field.

{Yod} The women, which of nature are pitiful, have sodden their own children with their hands that they might be their meat, in the miserable destruction of the daughter of my people.

{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.

{Tsadi} They lay so sharp wait for us, that we can not go safe upon the streets: for our end is come, our days are fulfilled, our end is here.

{Kuf} Our persecutors are swifter than the Eagles of the air, they followed upon us over the mountains, and laid wait for us in the wilderness.

{Res} The very breath of our mouth, even the anointed LORD himself, shall be taken in our sins; of whom we say, "Under his shadow we shall be preserved among the Heathen."

{The Prayer of Jeremiah} Call to remembrance, O LORD, what we have suffered; consider and see our confusion.

Our inheritance is turned to the strangers, and our houses to the aliens.

We are become careful and fatherless, and our mothers are as the widows.

We are fain to drink our own water for money, and our own wood must we buy with money.

Our necks are under persecution, we are weary, and have no rest.

Our fathers, which now are gone, have sinned; and we must bear their wickedness.

We must get our living with the peril of our lives because of the drought of the wilderness.

Our skin is as it had been burnt in an oven, for very sore hunger.

The wives are ravished in Zion, and the maidens in the cities of Judah.

The princes are hanged up with the hand of the enemies; they have not spared the old sage men;

they have taken young men's lives from them, and the boys are hanged up upon trees.

The joy of our heart is gone, our merry query is turned into mourning.

The garland of our head is fallen: alas, that ever we sinned so sore!

Therefore our heart is full of heaviness, and our eyes dim:

O LORD, turn thou us unto thee: and so shall we be turned. Renew our days as in old time,