How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! She that was great among the nations is become as a widow; the princess among the provinces is become tributary!

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

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

The Lord hath cast down 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 as a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.

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

See, Jehovah, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled; my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled: without, the sword hath bereaved me, within, it is as death.

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.

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

The Lord is become as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel; he hath swallowed up all her palaces; he hath destroyed his strongholds, and hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

And he hath violently cast down his enclosure as a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused set feast and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger king and priest.

The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath rejected 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 Jehovah, as on the day of a set feast.

They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city; when they pour out their soul into their mothers' 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?

Thou hast called up, as on the day of a set feast, my terrors on every side; and in the day of Jehovah's anger there was none that escaped or remained: those that I have nursed and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

He hath made me to dwell in dark places as those that have been long dead.

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

He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

The sons of Zion, so precious, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst; the young children ask bread, no man breaketh it unto them.

And the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the reward of the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were violently laid upon her.

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their figure was as sapphire.

We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

Turn thou us unto thee, Jehovah, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.