{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.

{Vav} All the beauty of the daughter of Zion is away, her princes are become like harts that find no pasture. They are driven away before their enemy, so that they have no more power.

{Khet} Jerusalem sinned ever more and more, therefore is she come in decay. All they that had her in honour, despise her: for they have seen her filthiness. Yea she sigheth and is ashamed of herself.

{Kuf} I called for my lovers, but they beguiled me; for my Priests and counselors, but they perished: even while they sought for meat, to save their lives.

{Shin} They hear my mourning, but there is none that will comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble, and are glad thereof, because thou hast done it. But thou shalt bring forth the time, when they also shall be like unto me.

{Tet} Her ports are cast down to the ground, her bars are broken and smitten in sunder: her king and princes are carried away to the gentiles. They have neither law nor Prophets, nor yet any vision from the LORD.

{Yod} The Senators of the daughter Zion sit upon the ground in silence: they have strawed ashes upon their heads, and girded themselves with sackcloth. The maidens of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

{Lamed} Even when they spake to their mothers, "Where is meat and drink?" For while they so said, they fell down in the streets of the city, like as they had been wounded, and some died in their mothers' bosom.

{Nun} Thy prophets have looked out vain and foolish things for thee: they have not showed thee of thy wickedness, to keep thee from captivity; but have overladen thee, and through falsity scattered thee abroad.

{Samekh} All they that go by thee clap their hands at thee - hissing and wagging their heads upon the daughter Jerusalem - and say, "Is this the city that men call so fair, wherein the whole land rejoiceth?"

He hath set me in darkness, as they that be dead forever.

I am laughed to scorn of all my people; they make songs upon me all the day long.

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

They poured water upon my head, then thought I, "Now am I undone."

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

The lips of mine enemies, and their devices that they take against me, all the day long.

Thou seest also their sitting down and their rising up. They make their songs of nothing but me.

{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?

{He} They that were wont to fair delicately, perish in the streets; they that afore were brought up in purple, make now much of dung.

{Tet} They that be slain with the sword, are happier than such as die of hunger, and perish away famishing for 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.

{Samekh} But they cried unto every man, "Flee the staining! Away, get you hence, touch it not! Yea," say they, "ye must be burnt: ye must dwell among the Gentiles, and bide no longer here."

{Ayin} The countenance of the LORD hath banished them, and shall never look more upon them: For they themselves neither regarded the priests, nor pitied the elders.

{Tsadi} They lay so sharp wait for us, that we can not go safe upon the streets: for our end is come, our days are fulfilled, our end is here.

{Kuf} Our persecutors are swifter than the Eagles of the air, they followed upon us over the mountains, and laid wait for us in the wilderness.

The princes are hanged up with the hand of the enemies; they have not spared the old sage men;

they have taken young men's lives from them, and the boys are hanged up upon trees.