(Zayin) Jerusalem remembers, when she became a poor homeless person, all her treasures that she owned in days of old. When her people fell into an enemy's grip, none of her allies came to her rescue. Her enemies gloated over her; they sneered at her downfall.

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 called for my lovers, they -- they have deceived me, My priests and my elders in the city have expired; When they have sought food for themselves, Then they give back their soul.

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.

My eyes fail because of tears,
My spirit is greatly troubled;
My heart is poured out on the earth
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
When little ones and infants faint
In the streets of the city.

They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? when they are falling like the wounded in the open squares of the town, when their life is drained out on their mother's breast.

(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 out desperately for help, he has shut 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.

(Yod) Let a person sit alone in silence, when the Lord is disciplining 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 in the day when I made my prayer to you: you said, Have no 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.

(Yod) The hands of tenderhearted women cooked their own children, who became their food, when my people were destroyed.

People cried to them, “Go away! Unclean!
Depart! Depart! Do not touch!”
So they fled, then they wandered [as fugitives];
People among the nations said,
“They shall not stay here any longer with us.”

{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.