Jerusalem sinned greatly, and she became unclean. All who honored her now despise her, because they saw her naked. She herself groans and turns her face away.

All her people groaned as they searched for food. They traded their valuables in order to eat, to keep themselves alive. Look, LORD, and see how I have become dishonored.

May it not befall you, all who pass along the road! Look and see: Is there any grief like my grief dealt out to me, by which the LORD afflicted me in the time of his fierce wrath?

People heard how I groan, with no one to comfort me. All my adversaries have heard about my troubles; they rejoice that you have caused them. Bring on the day you have promised, so my adversaries will become like me.

The Lord swallowed up without pity all of Jacob's habitations. In his wrath he tore down the strongholds of fair Judah. He cast to the ground in dishonor both her kingdom and its rulers.

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.

Jerusalem's gates collapsed to the ground; he destroyed and broke the bars of her gates. Both king and prince have gone into captivity. There is no instruction, and the prophets receive no vision from the LORD.

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.

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.

I am a man familiar with affliction under the rod of God's anger.

He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he placed heavy chains on me.

So I say, "My strength is gone as is my hope in the LORD."

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

It is good to hope and wait patiently for the LORD's salvation.

Let him fall face down in the dust, so there may yet be hope.

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

until the LORD bends down to see from heaven.

What I see grieves my soul because of all the young women of my city.

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

The nursing child's tongue cleaves to its palate from thirst. Young children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.

None of the kings of the earth would have believed, nor the world's inhabitants, that the adversary and the enemy could have breached the gates of Jerusalem.

people stagger around in the streets like the blind, defiled by blood unclean so that no one is able to touch their clothing.

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.

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."

So why have you completely forgotten us, forsaking us for so long?

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