How solitary and lonely sits the city [Jerusalem]
That was [once] full of people!
How like a widow she has become.
She who was great among the nations!
The princess among the provinces,
Has become a forced laborer!

{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.

All her beauty and majesty
Have departed from the Daughter of Zion (Jerusalem).
Her princes have become like deer
That have found no pasture;
They have fled without strength
Before the pursuer.

(Zayin) Jerusalem remembers, when she became a poor homeless person, all her treasures that she owned in days of old. When her people fell into an enemy's grip, none of her allies came to her rescue. Her enemies gloated over her; they sneered at her downfall.

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.

The adversary has spread out his hand
Over all her precious and desirable things;
For she has seen the [Gentile] nations enter her sanctuary (the Jerusalem temple)—
The ones whom You commanded
That they should not enter into Your congregation [not even in the outer courts].

"Look, O Lord! Consider that I have become worthless!"

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is brought upon me, Wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce 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,
But there is no comforter for her.
The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob
That his neighbors should be his enemies;
Jerusalem has become a filthy thing [an object of contempt] 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,

(Sin/Shin) They have heard that I groan, yet there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have brought it about. Bring about the day of judgment that you promised so that they may end up 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 has bent His bow like an enemy;
He has set His right hand like an adversary
And slain all that were pleasant to the eye;
In the tent of the daughter of Zion
He has 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.

(Mem) With what can I equate you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter Jerusalem? To what can I liken you so that I might comfort you, O Virgin Daughter Zion? Your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you?

(Nun) Your prophets saw visions for you that were worthless lies. They failed to expose your sin so as to restore your fortunes. They saw oracles for you that were worthless lies.

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.

(Ayin) The Lord has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his promise that he threatened long ago: He has overthrown you without mercy and has enabled the enemy to gloat over you; he has exalted your adversaries' power.

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 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.

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

He hath made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead.

(Gimel) He has walled me in so that I cannot get out; he has weighted me down with heavy prison chains.

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 because of the Lord’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed,
Because His [tender] compassions never fail.

Jehovah is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

It is good that one waits quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.

It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke [of godly discipline] in his youth.

Let him give his cheek to him that smiteth him; let him be 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 everything comes -- both calamity and blessing?

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

You shrouded yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through.

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

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

(Vav) The punishment of my people exceeded that of of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment with no one to help her.

{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.

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.

(Lamed) Neither the kings of the earth nor the people of the lands ever thought that enemy or foe would enter the gates of Jerusalem.

It is because of 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 are wandering like blind men in the streets, they are made unclean with blood, so that their robes may not be touched by men.

(Ayin) Our eyes continually failed us as we looked in vain for help. From our watchtowers we watched for a nation that could not rescue us.

(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!

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz: The cup shall pass through unto thee also; 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 garland of our head is fallen: alas, that ever we sinned so sore!

because of the hill of Zion that is destroyed: Insomuch that the foxes run upon it.

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

Bring us back to yourself, O Lord, so that we may return to you; renew our life as in days before,

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