See her seated by herself, the town which was full of people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow! She who was a princess among the countries has come under the yoke of forced work!

Bitterly she cries in the night, as tears stream down her cheeks. No one consoles her of all her friends. All her neighbors have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

{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.

Great is the sin of Jerusalem; for this cause she has become an unclean thing: all those who gave her honour are looking down on her, because they have seen her shame: now truly, breathing out grief, she is turned back.

Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

(Mem) He sent down fire into my bones, and it overcame them. He spread out a trapper's net for my feet; he made me turn back. He has made me desolate; I am faint all day long.

The Lord hath cast down 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 as a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.

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.

I sent for my lovers, but they were false to me: my priests and my responsible men were breathing their last breath in the town, while they were looking for food to give them new life.

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.

Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

He has cut down {in fierce anger} all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn his right hand from the faces of [the] enemy, and he has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, it has consumed all around.

{Daleth} He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath fastened his righthand as an adversary: and everything that was pleasant to see, he hath smitten it down. He hath poured out his wrath like a fire, into the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion.

{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.

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.

(Khet) The Lord was determined to tear down Daughter Zion's wall. He prepared to knock it down; he did not withdraw his hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and fortified walls lament; together they mourned their ruin.

Her doors have gone down into the earth; he has sent destruction on her locks: her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; even her prophets have had no vision from the Lord.

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.

My eyes are wasted with weeping, the inmost parts of my body are deeply moved, my inner parts are drained out on the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because of the young children and babies at the breast who are falling without strength in the open squares of the town.

They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? when they are falling like the wounded in the open squares of the town, when their life is drained out on their mother's breast.

All who go by make a noise with their hands at you; they make hisses, shaking their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, and saying, Is this the town which was the crown of everything beautiful, the joy of all the earth?

All thine enemies opened wide their mouth upon thee: they hissed and they will gnash the teeth: they said, We swallowed down: surely this the day we longed for; we found; we saw.

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.

Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

Up! give cries in the night, at the starting of the night-watches; let your heart be flowing out like water before the face of the Lord, lifting up your hands to him for the life of your young children who are falling down, feeble for need of food, at the top of every street.

Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Youth and elder, have lain down on the ground in the streets, My virgins and my young men, have fallen by the sword, - Thou hast slain, in the day of thine anger, Thou hast slaughtered, hast not spared!

He walled me in so that I cannot get out;
He has weighted down my chain.

He has broken my teeth on grit, he has trampled me down in ash.

My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is bowed down within me.

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

Who was it that spake, and it was done, when , My Lord, had not commanded?

We have done wrong and gone against your law; we have not had your forgiveness.

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,

Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.

The Lord is unkind to my soul, more than all the daughters of my town.

Without cause my enemies
Hunted me down like a bird;

They have put down my life into a pit, and laid a stone upon me.

The waters ran down on my head;
I said, “I am cut off (destroyed)!”

You heard my voice; don't hide your ear at my breathing, at my cry.

You drew near in the day that I called on you; you said, Don't be afraid.

O Lord, You have seen the wrong [done to me];
Judge my case.

Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.

(Tav) Pay them back what they deserve, O Lord, according to what they have done.

(Tet) Those who died by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, those who waste away, struck down from lack of food.

ס Samek“Stay away! Unclean!” people shouted at them.
“Away, away! Don’t touch us!”
So they wandered aimlessly.
It was said among the nations,
“They can stay here no longer.”

(Tsade) Our enemies hunted us down at every step so that we could not walk about in our streets. Our end drew near, our days were numbered, for our end had come!

O Lord, remember what has come upon us;
Look, and see our reproach (national disgrace)!

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