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!

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.

ג GimelJudah has gone into exile
following affliction and harsh slavery;
she lives among the nations
but finds no place to rest.
All her pursuers have overtaken her
in narrow places.

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 all her glory has gone from the daughter of Zion: her rulers have become like harts with no place for food, and they have gone in flight without strength before the attacker.

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 become as an unclean thing; All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

His hand spread out hath an adversary On all her desirable things, For she hath seen -- Nations have entered her sanctuary, Concerning which Thou didst command, 'They do not come into the assembly to thee.'

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!”

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 on high 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.

Bound hath been the yoke of my transgressions by His hand, They are wrapped together, They have gone up on my neck, He hath caused my power to stumble, The Lord hath given me into hands, I am not able to rise.

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.

For these I am weeping, My eye, my eye, is running down with waters, For, far from me hath been a comforter, Refreshing my soul, My sons have been desolate, For mighty hath been an enemy.

Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort her; Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, that they that are round about him should be his adversaries: Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

“The Lord is righteous and just;
For I have rebelled against His commandment (His word).
Hear now, all you peoples,
And look at my pain;
My virgins and my young men
Have 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.

Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.

They have heard that I have sighed, There is no comforter for me, All my enemies have heard of my calamity, They have rejoiced that Thou hast done it, Thou hast brought in the day Thou hast called, And they are like to me.

Come in doth all their evil before Thee, And one is doing to them as Thou hast done to me, For all my transgressions, For many are my sighs, and my heart is sick!

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool 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 hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn 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.

ט TetZion’s gates have fallen to the ground;
He has destroyed and shattered the bars on her gates.
Her king and her leaders live among the nations,
instruction is no more,
and even her prophets receive
no vision from the Lord.

Sit on the earth -- keep silent do the elders of the daughter of Zion, They have caused dust to go up on their head, They have girded on sackcloth, Put down to the earth their head have the virgins of Jerusalem.

Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.

How shall I console you?
To what shall I compare you,
O Daughter of Jerusalem?
With what shall I compare you, so that I may comfort you,
O Virgin Daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can heal you?

Your prophets look on your behalf; they see false and deceptive visions. They did not expose your sins in order to restore what had been captured. Instead, they crafted oracles for you that are false and misleading.

Everyone who passes by on the road shake their fists at you. They hiss and shake their heads at cherished Jerusalem: "Is this the city men used to call "The Perfection of Beauty,' and "The Joy of the Entire Earth'"?

{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."

The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine 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 in the top of every street.

Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.

Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

He hath led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.

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

He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

He walled me in so that I cannot get out;
He has weighted down my chain.

Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

He has walled in my ways with cut stones;
He has made my paths crooked.

He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.

He hath trodden His bow, And setteth me up as a mark for an arrow.

He has made my life nothing but pain, he has given me the bitter root in full measure.

He has broken my teeth on grit, he has trampled me down in ash.

And I said, My strength is perished, and my hope in Jehovah.

Keep in mind my trouble and my wandering, the bitter root and the poison.

My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

This I keep in mind, and because of this I have hope.

The loyal love of Yahweh does not cease; his compassions do not come to an end.

[They] are new in the morning, great is your faithfulness.

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

The Lord is good to those who wait [confidently] for Him,
To those who seek Him [on the authority of God’s word].

It is good that one should both wait, and that in silence, for the salvation of Jehovah.

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

Let him sit alone [in hope] and keep quiet,
Because God has laid it on him [for his benefit].

He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.

Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him;
Let him be filled with reproach.

For though he sends grief, still he will have pity in the full measure of his love.

For He does not enjoy bringing affliction
or suffering on mankind.

To bruise under one's feet any bound ones of earth,

{to deprive one of justice} before the face of the Most High;

To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.

Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Complain [of punishment] in view of his sins?

{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 God in the heavens.

You have covered [yourself] {in anger} and pursued us, you have slain and not shown mercy.

You have covered yourself in a cloud {so that prayer cannot pass through}.

Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.

{Ayin} All our enemies gape upon us.

Fear and the pit are come on us, devastation and destruction.

(Ayin) Tears flow from my eyes and will not stop; there will be no break

Till the Lord's eye is turned on me, till he sees my trouble from heaven.

My eyes bring me grief
because of the fate of all the women in my city.

They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

The waters ran down on my head;
I said, “I am cut off (destroyed)!”

ק QofI called on Your name, Yahweh,
from the depths of the Pit.

Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.

O Lord, you have seen my wrong; be judge in my cause.

You have seen all the evil rewards they have sent on me, and all their designs against me.

When they sit and when they rise, look,
I am mocked by their songs.

You will give them a heart filled with anguish.
May Your curse be on them!

Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.

How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.

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 sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

The tongue of the infant clings
To the roof of its mouth because of thirst;
The little ones ask for food,
But no one gives it to them.

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

For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: