(Alef)Alas! The city once full of people now sits all alone! The prominent lady among the nations has become a widow! The princess who once ruled the provinces has become a forced laborer!

She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.

Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.

The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

Those who are against her have become the head, everything goes well for her haters; for the Lord has sent sorrow on her because of the great number of her sins: her young children have gone away as prisoners before the attacker.

And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

Her uncleanness is in her train; she remembered not her latter state; and she will come down wonderfully: none comforting for her. See, O Jehovah, my affliction: for the enemy magnified.

The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

The yoke of my transgressions was bound by his hand: they will be woven together, they came up upon my neck: he caused my strength to fail, Jehovah gave me into the hands; I shall not be able to rise up.

The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

Because of all this, I weep; my eyes stream with tears because far from me is the comforter of my soul. My children are sorrowful, because the enemy has won.

Zion spreads out her hands; no one is there to comfort her. The LORD has issued an order against Jacob, that all who are around him are to be his enemies; Jerusalem has become unclean among them.

The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.

Look, LORD, how distressed I am; all my insides are churning. My heart is troubled within me, because I vigorously rebelled. Outside the sword brings loss of life, while at home death rules.

They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.

Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

How will Jehovah in his anger cover the daughter of Zion! he cast down from the heavens to the earth the beauty of Israel, and he remembered not the footstool of his feet in the day of his anger.

The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

And he will tear away as a garden his dwelling: he destroyed his appointment: Jehovah caused to forget the appointment in Zion, and the Sabbath, and he will despise in the wrath of his anger the king and the priest.

The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

My eyes have {spent all their tears}; {my stomach} is in torment, {my heart} is poured out on the earth because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because child and babe faint in [the] public squares of a city.

They ask their mothers, "Is there anything to eat or drink?" They faint in the streets of the city like wounded men. Their life ebbs away while they lie on their mother's bosom.

What shall I take to witness for thee? what shall I liken unto thee, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, virgin daughter of Zion? For thy ruin is great as the sea: who will heal thee?

Thy prophets saw for thee vanity and a foolish thing, and they uncovered not upon thine iniquity to turn back thy captivity; and they will see for thee burdens of falsehood and seductions.

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 call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

All thine enemies have opened their mouth 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.

Jehovah did what he purposed; he completed his word which he commanded in days of old: he pulled down and he pitied not: and be will gladden the enemy over thee; he lifted up the horn of thine adversaries.

Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

Arise, cry out in the night, in 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, who faint from hunger at the top of all the streets.

See, O Yahweh, and do consider, to whom thou hast acted thus severely, - Will women, devour, their own fruit - the children they have dandled? Shall priest and prophet, be slain in the sanctuary of My Lord?

You have summoned my horror from all around, as if for a feast day; no one on the day of Yahweh's anger [is] a fugitive and a survivor; whoever I have cared for and reared, my enemy has destroyed.

Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.

He has put up a wall against me, shutting me in with bitter sorrow.

He has built a wall around me, I cannot go out; he has made my bronze fetters heavy.

He has put up a wall of cut stones about my ways, he has made my roads twisted.

He turned aside my ways and he will tear me in pieces: he set me a desolation.

He bent his bow, he will set me up as a mark for the arrow.

I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.

He will break my teeth with gravel stones, he covered me with ashes.

He hath put my soul out of rest; I forget all good things.

Then I thought: My future is lost,
as well as my hope from the Lord.

Remember well, and bow down doth my soul in me.

This {I have reminded myself}, therefore I will hope.

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

Good is Yahweh, to them who wait for him, to the soul that will seek him;

It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is still young.

He will sit alone and be silent, for he laid upon him.

He will give his mouth in the dust, if perhaps there is hope.

He will endure being slapped in the face, bringing him public disgrace.

For the Lord will not cast off for ever:

But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,

to wrong a man in his cause, will not the Lord see it?

{Who can speak} and it will happen [if] the Lord has not commanded [it]?

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

Let us search out our ways, and examine them well, and let us return unto Yahweh;

We will lift up our hearts upon the hands to God in the heavens.

We have been dissemblers, and have offended; will thou therefore not be intreated?

All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

Whole rivers of water gush out of mine eyes, for the great hurt of my people.

My eyes overflow unceasingly,
Without stopping,

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

Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.

Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.

Thou hast heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me;

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

ת TavYou will pay them back what they deserve, Lord,
according to the work of their hands.

You will harden their hearts;
Your curse will be upon them.

You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
From under the heavens of the Lord.

How is the gold become dim! the most pure gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary poured out at the top of all the streets!

For the iniquity of the daughter of my people will be great above the sin of Sodom being overthrown as in a moment, and no hands waited for her.

Those wounded by the sword were good above those wounded by famine: these will flow away, being thrust through from the produce of the field.

Jehovah finished his wrath; he poured out the burning of his anger, and he kindled a fire in Zion, and it will devour her foundations.

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

(Nun) They wander blindly through the streets, defiled by the blood they shed, while no one dares to touch their garments.

"Go away! Defiled!" they shout to them. "Go away! Go away! Do not touch!" so they left, they left; it was said among the nations, "{They will no longer dwell with us}."

The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.

While we exist -- consumed are our eyes for our vain help, In our watch-tower we have watched for a nation that saveth not.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed one of Yahweh, was captured in their pits; of whom we said, "In his shadow we will live among the nations."

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz; but to you also the cup will pass, you will become drunk and strip yourself bare.

The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.

We drank our water for silver; our wood will come for a price.

But You, O Lord, reign forever;
Your throne endures from generation to [all] generations.

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