How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

Judah has gone into exile to escape affliction and servitude. She that sat among the nations, has found no rest. All her pursuers overtook her amid narrow passes.

The ways of Zion are sad, because no one comes to the holy meeting; all her doorways are made waste, her priests are breathing out sorrow: her virgins are troubled, and it is bitter for her.

כ KafAll her people groan
while they search for bread.
They have traded their precious belongings for food
in order to stay alive.
Lord, look and see
how I have become despised.

From height he sent fire into my bones, and it brought them down: he spread a net for my feet, he turned me away behind: he gave me desolation, being sad all the day.

“The yoke of my transgressions is bound;
By His hand they are knit and woven together.
They have come upon my neck.
He has made my strength fail;
The Lord has put me into the hand
Of those against whom I cannot stand.

The Lord hath set at nought all my mighty men in the midst of me; He hath called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men: The Lord hath trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.

(Ayin) I weep because of these things; my eyes flow with tears. For there is no one in sight who can comfort me or encourage me. My children are desolated because an enemy has prevailed.

All their evil shall come before thee; and do evil to them according as thou didst evil to me for all my transgressions: for many my groanings, and any heart being sad.

He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth on every side.

He has bent His bow like an enemy;
He has set His right hand like an adversary
And slain all that were delightful and pleasing to the eye;
In the tent of the Daughter of Zion
He has poured out His wrath like fire.

And he hath violently cast down his enclosure as a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused set feast and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger king and priest.

The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath rejected his sanctuary; he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: they have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as on the day of a set feast.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

{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.

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?

Clapped hands at thee have all passing by the way, They have hissed -- and they shake the head At the daughter of Jerusalem: 'Is this the city of which they said: The perfection of beauty, a joy to all the land?'

Opened against thee their mouth have all thine enemies, They have hissed, yea, they gnash the teeth, They have said: 'We have swallowed her up, Surely this is the day that we looked for, We have found -- we have seen.'

The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

See, O Lord, and look!
With whom have You dealt this way?
Should women eat their offspring,
The little ones who were born healthy and beautiful?
Should priest and prophet be killed
In the sanctuary of the Lord?

Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger: Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

He has set a fence around me and I cannot go out; He has made my bronze chain heavy.

By him my ways have been turned on one side and I have been pulled in bits; he has made me waste.

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

He has caused the arrows of His quiver
To enter my inner parts.

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

My portion is Jehovah, hath my soul said, Therefore I hope for Him.

Good! when one doth stay and stand still For the salvation of Jehovah.

Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he hath laid it upon him.

Who is this -- he hath said, and it is, And the Lord hath not commanded it?

Thou didst set us the offscouring and despising in the midst of peoples.

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

Thou hast drawn near in the day I call Thee, Thou hast said, Fear not.

When they sit and when they rise, look,
I am mocked by their songs.

Their appearance is [now] blacker than soot [because of the prolonged famine];
They are not recognized in the streets;
Their skin clings to their bones;
It is withered, and it has become [dry] like wood.

They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

Our pursuers were swifter than [the] eagles of [the] heavens; they chased us on the mountains, they have set an ambush for us in the desert.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.

Slaves, have ruled over us, There is none to set free from their hand.

The elders sit no more under the gates, and the young men use no more the playing of Music.

You, O Yahweh, will sit forever [on] your throne for generation to generation.