Jerusalem remembers the days of her misery and wanderings, all her treasures that were from the days of long ago. When her people fell into [the] hand of the enemy, there was no one helping her; the enemies saw her, they mocked at her destruction.

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].

(Lamed) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by on the road? Look and see! Is there any pain like mine? The Lord has afflicted me, he has inflicted it on me when he burned with anger.

I have called to my lovers, they themselves deceived me; my priests and elders perished in the city when they sought food for themselves to revive their life.

Give ear to the voice of my grief; I have no comforter; all my haters have news of my troubles, they are glad because you have done it: let the day of fate come when they will be like me.

(Alef) Alas! The Lord has covered Daughter Zion with his anger. He has thrown down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he did not protect his temple when he displayed his anger.

Blinded with tears are mine eyes, In ferment is my body, Poured out to the earth is my grief, for the sore hurt of the daughter of my people, - when child and suckling are swooning, in the broadways of the city.

They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers bosom.

(Qof) Get up! Cry out in the night when the night watches start! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord! Lift up your hands to him for your children's lives; they are fainting at every street corner.

(Sin/Shin) The young boys and old men lie dead on the ground in the streets. My young women and my young men have fallen by the sword. You killed them when you were angry; you slaughtered them without mercy.

Wilt thou proclaim, like the day of an appointed meeting - My terrors round about? when there was not - in the day of the anger of Yahweh - fugitive or survivor, - Those whom I dandled and reared, my foe hath destroyed.

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

Good! when one doth stay and stand still For the salvation of Jehovah.

It is good for a man to undergo the yoke when he is young.

Let him sit alone and be silent when he has laid it on him.

When any of the prisoners of the earth are crushed underfoot,

when a person's rights are perverted in defiance of the Most High.

When a man is thwarted in his appeal, does the Lord condone it?

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

Why should any living person complain when punished for his sins?

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

You came near on a day [when] I called you, you said, "Do not fear!"

Take note of them when they are seated, and when they get up; I am their song.

And the punishment of the daughter of my people hath grown greater than the punishment of Sodom, - which was overthrown as in a moment, when no hands had been laid violently upon her.

With their own hands, compassionate women boil their own children they become their food when my beloved people were destroyed.

They cried to them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

{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.