She weeps bitterly in the night
And her tears are [constantly] on her cheeks;
Among all her lovers (political allies)
She has no one to comfort her.
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
They have become her enemies.

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.

In the days of her affliction and homelessness
Jerusalem remembers all her precious things
That she had from the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the adversary,
And no one helped her,
The enemy saw her,
They mocked at her downfall.

Jerusalem sinned greatly;
Therefore she has become an unclean thing [and has been removed].
All who honored her [now] despise her
Because they have seen her nakedness;
Even she herself groans and turns [her face] away.

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].

All her people groan, seeking bread;
They have exchanged their desirable and precious things for food
To restore their lives.
“See, O Lord, and consider
How despised and repulsive I have become!”

“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.

“I [Jerusalem] called to my lovers (political allies), but they deceived me.
My priests and my elders perished in the city
While they looked for food to restore their strength.

“People have heard that I groan,
That I have no comforter [in You].
All my enemies have heard of my desperation;
They are delighted [O Lord] that You have done it.
Oh, that You would bring the day [of judgment] which You have proclaimed
So that they will become like me.

The Lord has rejected His altar;
He has abandoned His sanctuary.
He has given into the hand of the enemy
The walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord
As on a day of an appointed feast.

The Lord determined to lay in ruins
The [city] wall of the Daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line,
He has not stopped His hand from destroying.
He has caused the rampart and the wall to lament (mourn in grief);
They have languished together.

The elders of the Daughter of Zion
Sit on the ground keeping silent;
They have thrown dust on their heads,
They have covered themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
Have bowed their heads to the ground.

They cry to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their life [slips away and] is poured out
In their mothers’ arms.

Your prophets have seen (imagined) for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not exposed your wickedness
To restore you from captivity [by teaching you to repent],
But they have seen (imagined) and declared to you false and misleading oracles.

All who pass along the way
Clap their hands in derision at you;
They scoff and shake their heads
At the Daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
“Is this the city that was called
‘The perfection of beauty,
The joy of all the earth’?”

All your enemies
Have opened their mouths wide against you;
They [scornfully] hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Certainly this is the day for which we waited;
We have reached it, we have seen it!”

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?

They are new every morning;
Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.

They silenced me in the pit
And placed a stone over me.

The [noble and] precious sons of Zion,
[Once] worth their weight in fine gold,
How they are regarded [merely] as earthen jars,
The work of a potter’s hands!

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].

Her princes were purer than snow,
They were whiter than milk [in appearance];
They were more ruddy in body than rubies,
Their polishing was like lapis lazuli (sapphire).

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.

Those killed with the sword
Are more fortunate than those killed with hunger;
For the hungry pine and ebb away,
For the lack of the fruits of the field.

The hands of compassionate women
Boiled their own children;
They became food for them
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Judah].

They wandered, blind, in the streets;
They were defiled with blood
So that no one could touch their garments.

People cried to them, “Go away! Unclean!
Depart! Depart! Do not touch!”
So they fled, then they wandered [as fugitives];
People among the nations said,
“They shall not stay here any longer with us.”

The presence of the Lord scattered them [among the nations];
He will not continue to look after them.
They did not honor the priests;
They did not favor the elders.

Our pursuers were swifter
Than the eagles of the sky;
They pursued us on the mountains,
They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness.

They ravished the women in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.

Princes were hung by their hands;
Elders were not respected.