How is seated alone, the city that abounded with people, hath become as a widow, - She who abounded among the nations was a princess among provinces, hath come under tribute.

{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.

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.

Thus hath gone forth from the daughter of Zion, all that adorned her, - Her princes have become like harts that have found no pasture, and have gone strengthless before the pursuer.

Jerusalem hath remembered in the days of her humiliation and her fleeings - all her precious things, which have existed from the days of old, - Now that her people have been falling into the hand of the adversary, with none to help her, the adversaries have seen her, have mocked over her sabbath-keepings.

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing; All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

Her impurity, is in her skirts, She hath not remembered her hereafter, Therefore hath she come down wonderfully, none to comfort her, - Behold, O Yahweh, my humiliation, that the foe, hath made himself great.

His hand, hath the adversary spread out, over all her precious things, - for she saw that, the nations, entered her sanctuary, as to whom thou didst command they should not enter - in the convocation - unto thee!

All her people, are sighing, seeking bread, They have given their precious things for food, to bring back life, - Behold, O Yahweh, and discern, that I have become worthless.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Look around and see, whether there is pain like my pain, which is severely dealt out to me, - in that Yahweh, hath caused grief, in the day of the glow of his anger?

{Mem} From above hath he sent down a fire into my bones: and it burned them cruelly. He hath laid a net for my feet, and thrown me wide open: he hath made me desolate, so that I must ever be mourning.

{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.

For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water; Because the comforter that should refresh my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, because the enemy hath prevailed.

Zion stretches out her hands; there is no one to comfort her. Yahweh has commanded against Jacob, [that] those surrounding him [should be] his enemies; Jerusalem has become a defilement among them.

I called to my lovers, they, deceived me, My priests and mine elders, in the city, have breathed their last, - for they sought them food, that they might bring back their life.

See, O Yahweh, that I am in distress, Mine inward parts, are in ferment, My heart is turned within me, for I have obstinately rebelled, - Without, bereaveth the sword, Within, is like death,

They have heard - that, sighing am, I, and am saying - There is none to comfort me, All my foes, - having heard of my calamity - have rejoiced, because, thou, hast done it, - thou hast brought in the day thou didst proclaim, So let them become like me.

{Aleph} Alas, how hath the LORD darkened the daughter of Zion so sore in his wrath? As for the honour of Israel, he hath casten it down from heaven: How happeneth it, that he remembered not his own foot stool when he was angry?

ג GimelHe has cut off every horn of Israel
in His burning anger
and withdrawn His right hand
in the presence of the enemy.
He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
that consumes everything.

He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary, And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire.

{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 city gates have fallen to the ground; he smashed to bits the bars that lock her gates. Her king and princes were taken into exile; there is no more guidance available. As for her prophets, they no longer receive a vision from the Lord.

My eyes fail with tears; my inward parts ferment; my liver is poured on the ground for the ruin of the daughter of my people, in that the children and the babies faint in the streets of the city.

How shall I solemnly admonish thee? What shall I liken to thee, thou daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare with thee, that I may comfort thee, thou virgin, daughter of Zion? for, great as the sea, is thy grievous injury, Who can heal thee?

The visions which your prophets have seen for you are false and foolish; they have not made clear to you your sin so that your fate might be changed: but they have seen for you false words, driving you away.

All that pass by clap their hands at thee; They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem,'saying , Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

Yahweh has done what he has planned; he has fulfilled his promise that he ordained from the days of old; he has demolished and not shown mercy; he has made an enemy rejoice over you, he has exalted the {might} of your foes.

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.

See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors around, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up, hath my enemy consumed.

I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

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

He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.

He is like a bear that lies in wait for me, a lion in hiding.

Thou wilt, indeed remember, that, bowed down concerning myself, is my soul;

It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

The LORD is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth.

He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.

Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

[Is] it not from the mouth of the Most High [that] disaster and good will come?

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

Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.

You have made us like waste and that for which there is no use, among the peoples.

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

They have chased me sore like a bird, they that are mine enemies without cause.

Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.

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

The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.

Give them the thing, that their own heart is afraid of: even thy curse.

{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?

Even the jackals offer the breast,
They nurse their young;
But the daughter of my people has become cruel
Like ostriches in the wilderness [that desert their young].

{Daleth} The tongues of the sucking children, cleave to the roof of their mouths for very thirst. The young children ask bread, but there is no man that giveth it them.

They that fed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:

Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of 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.

The Lord has fulfilled His wrath;
He has poured out His fierce anger
And has kindled a fire in Zion
That has consumed her foundations.

The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy would have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.

They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through to thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.

We have to pay for our drinking water;
Our wood comes to us at a price.

We have given our hands to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians so that we might have enough bread.

Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.

The crown is fallen from our head: woe to us, that we have sinned!

For the mount of Zion -- that is desolate, Foxes have gone up on it.

But thou, O LORD, that remainest for evermore, and thy seat, world without end:

Restore us to you, O Yahweh, that we will be restored; renew our days as of old.

Or is it that thou hast utterly rejected us? Wouldest thou be exceeding wroth against us?