{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.

{Daleth} The streets of Zion mourn, because no man cometh to the solemn feasts. All her gates are desolate; her priests make lamentation; her maidens are careful; and she herself is in great heaviness.

{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.

{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.

{Yod} The enemy hath put his hand to all the precious things that she had, yea even before her eyes came the Heathen in and out of the Sanctuary: whom thou, nevertheless, hast forbidden to come within thy congregation.

{Lamed} O ye all that go fore by, behold and see, if there be any sorrow like unto mine. wherewith the LORD hath troubled me in the day of his fearful wrath.

{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.

{Ayin} Therefore do I weep, and mine eyes gush out of water: for the comforter that should quicken me is far from me. My children are driven away. For why? The enemy hath gotten the over hand.

{Pe} Zion casteth out her hands, and there is no man to comfort her. The LORD hath laid the enemies round about Jacob, and Jerusalem is as it were a menstruous woman in the midst of them.

{Tsadi} The LORD is righteous, for I provoked his countenance unto anger. O take heed all ye people, and consider my heaviness: My maidens and my young men are led away in to captivity.

{Res} Consider, O LORD, how I am troubled: my womb is disquieted, my heart turneth about in me, and I am full of heaviness. The sword hurteth me without, and within I am like unto death.

{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.

{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?

{Beth} The LORD hath cast down all the glory of Jacob without any favour: all the strong places of the daughter Judah hath he broken in his wrath, and thrown them down to the ground: her kingdom and her princes hath he suspended.

{Gimel} In the wrath of his indignation he hath broken all the horn of Israel: he hath withdrawn his righthand from the enemy. Yea, a flame of fire is kindled in Jacob, and hath consumed up all round about.

{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.

{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.

{Zayin} The LORD hath forsaken his own altar, and is wroth with his own sanctuary, and hath given the walls of their towers into the hands of the enemy. Their enemies made a noise in the house of the LORD, as it had been in a solemn feast day.

{Khet} The LORD thought to break down the walls of the daughter Zion; he spread out his line, and drew not in his hand, till he had destroyed them. Therefore mourn the turrets and the broken walls together.

{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.

{Khaf} Mine eyes begin to fail me through weeping, my body is disquieted, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the great hurt of my people, seeing the children and babes did swoon in the streets of the city.

{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.

{Ayin} All thine enemies gape upon thee, whispering and biting their teeth, saying, "Let us devour, for the time that we looked for is come: we have found and seen it."

{Kuf} Stand up and make thy prayer in the first watch of the night; pour out thine heart like water before the LORD. Lift up thine hands for the lives of thy young children that die of hunger in the streets.

{ Res} Behold, O LORD, and consider: why hast thou gathered me up so clean? Shall the women then eat their own fruit; even children of a span long? Shall the priests and prophets be slain thus in the Sanctuary of the LORD?

{Shin} Young and old lie behind the streets, upon the ground; my maidens and young men are slain with the sword: whom thou in the day of thy wrathful indignation hast put to death. Yea, even thou hast put them to death, and not spared them.

{Tav} My neighbours that are round about me hast thou called, as it were to a feast day: so that in the day of the LORD's wrath none escaped, neither was any left behind. Those that I had brought up and nourished, hath mine enemy destroyed.

He drove me forth, and led me: Yea, into darkness, but not in to light.

He hath builded round about me, and closed me in with gall and travail.

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

{Gimel} He hath so hedged me in, that I cannot get out; and hath laid heavy links upon me.

{Daleth} He layeth wait for me like a Bear, and as a lion in a hole.

He hath marred my ways, and broken me in pieces: he hath laid me waste altogether.

{Vav} He hath smitten my teeth in pieces, and rolled me in the dust.

I thought in myself, "I am undone; there is no hope for me in the LORD."

Yea, thou shalt remember them, for my soul melteth away in me.

While I consider these things in my heart, I get a hope again.

"The LORD is my portion," sayeth my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

{Tet} O how good is the LORD unto them that put their trust in him, and to the soul that seeketh after him?

To condemn a man in his cause; The LORD hath no pleasure in such things.

Wherefore then murmureth the living man, let him murmur at his own sin.

{Nun} Let us look well upon our own ways, and remember ourselves, and turn again to the LORD.

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

{Samekh} Thou hast covered us in thy wrath, and persecuted us, thou hast slain us, without any favour.

Thou hast hid thyself in a cloud, that our prayer should not go through.

{Ayin} All our enemies gape upon us.

O LORD, when will thou look down from heaven, and consider?

Thou hast inclined thyself unto me, when I called upon thee, and haste said, "Fear not."

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

{Aleph} O how is the gold become so dim? How is the goodly colour of it so sore changed? And the stones of the sanctuary thus scattered in the corner of every street?

{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?

{Gimel} The Dragons give their young ones suck with bare breasts: but the daughter of my people is cruel, and dwelleth in the wilderness like the Ostriches.

{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.

{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.

{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.

{Khaf} The LORD hath performed his heavy wrath; he hath poured out the furiousness of his displeasure. He hath kindled a fire in Zion, which hath consumed the foundations thereof.

{Lamed} Neither the kings of the earth, nor all the inhabiters of the world, would have believed that the enemy and adversary should have come in at the gates of the city of Jerusalem.

{Nun} So that these blind men went stumbling in the streets, and stained themselves with blood, which else would touch no bloody cloth.

{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.

{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.

{Res} The very breath of our mouth, even the anointed LORD himself, shall be taken in our sins; of whom we say, "Under his shadow we shall be preserved among the Heathen."

{Shin} And thou, O daughter Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz, be glad and rejoice: for the cup shall come unto thee also, which when thou suppest of thou shalt be drunk.

We are fain to drink our own water for money, and our own wood must we buy with money.

Our skin is as it had been burnt in an oven, for very sore hunger.

The wives are ravished in Zion, and the maidens in the cities of Judah.

O LORD, turn thou us unto thee: and so shall we be turned. Renew our days as in old time,