in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, deported 745 Jews. All together 4,600 people were deported.

On the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.

Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes, and he dined regularly at the king’s table all the days of his life.

See her seated by herself, the town which was full of people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow! She who was a princess among the countries has come under the yoke of forced work!

{Beth} She weepeth sore in the night, so that the tears run down her cheeks: for among all her lovers, there is none that giveth her any comfort. Yea, her next friends transgress against her, and are become her enemies.

{Gimel} Judah is taken prisoner, because she was defiled: and for serving so many strange gods, she dwelleth now among the heathen. She findeth no rest: all they that persecuted her, took her in strait places where she could not escape.

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.

(Vav) All of Daughter Zion's splendor has departed. Her leaders became like deer; they found no pasture, so they were too exhausted to escape from the hunter.

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 sinned greatly, and she became unclean. All who honored her now despise her, because they saw her naked. She herself groans and turns her face away.

Her uncleanness is in her skirts, She hath not remembered her latter end, And she cometh down wonderfully, There is no comforter for her. See, O Jehovah, mine affliction, For exerted himself hath an enemy.

His hand, hath the adversary spread out, over all her precious things, - for she saw that, the nations, entered her sanctuary, as to whom thou didst command they should not enter - in the convocation - unto thee!

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.

(Mem) He sent down fire into my bones, and it overcame them. He spread out a trapper's net for my feet; he made me turn back. He has made me desolate; I am faint all day long.

“The Lord has rejected all the strong men
In my midst;
He has proclaimed an established time against me
To crush my young men.
The Lord has trampled down as in a wine press
The Virgin Daughter of Judah.

Zion's hands are outstretched; she has no comforter; the Lord has given orders to the attackers of Jacob round about him: Jerusalem has become like an unclean thing among them.

Righteous is Jehovah, For His mouth I have provoked. Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and see my pain, My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

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.

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.

How the Lord has overshadowed
Daughter Zion with His anger!
He has thrown down Israel’s glory
from heaven to earth.
He has abandoned His footstool
in the day of His anger.

The Lord swallowed up without pity all of Jacob's habitations. In his wrath he tore down the strongholds of fair Judah. He cast to the ground in dishonor both her kingdom and its rulers.

{Daleth} He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath fastened his righthand as an adversary: and everything that was pleasant to see, he hath smitten it down. He hath poured out his wrath like a fire, into the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion.

{Vav} Her tabernacle - which was like a garden of pleasure - hath he destroyed; her high solemn feasts hath he put down. The LORD hath brought it so to pass, that the high solemn feasts and Sabbaths in Zion are clean forgotten. In his heavy displeasure hath he made the king and priests to be despised.

The Lord rejected his altar, disavowing his sanctuary. He gave up her palace walls to the control of the enemy. They shouted in the LORD's Temple, as though they were attending a day of celebration.

It is the Lord's purpose to make waste the wall of the daughter of Zion; his line has been stretched out, he has not kept back his hand from destruction: he has sent sorrow on tower and wall, they have become feeble 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.

(Yod) The elders of Daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dirt on their heads; They have dressed in sackcloth. Jerusalem's young women stare down at the ground.

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.

What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?

Thy prophets have seen for thee a false and insipid thing, And have not revealed concerning thine iniquity, To turn back thy captivity, And they see for thee false burdens and causes of expulsion.

All passing by, have clapped, over thee, their hands, have hissed and wagged their head over the daughter of Jerusalem, - saying , Is, this, the city, of which men used to say - The perfection of beauty! A joy to 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.

ק QofArise, cry out in the night
from the first watch of the night.
Pour out your heart like water
before the Lord’s presence.
Lift up your hands to Him
for the lives of your children
who are fainting from hunger
on the corner of every street.

See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

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.

I am the man who has seen affliction
under the rod of God’s wrath.

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

And I say, Perished hath my strength and my hope from Jehovah.

It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

I say: The Lord is my portion,
therefore I will put my 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 to hope and wait patiently for the LORD's salvation.

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.

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

To deprive a man of justice
In the presence of the Most High,

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

Who is able to say a thing, and give effect to it, if it has not been ordered by the Lord?

What -- sigh habitually doth a living man, A man for his sin?

Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.

Until Yahweh look down, and see from heaven.

What I see grieves my soul because of all the young women of my city.

You come near when I call on You;
You say: “Do not be afraid.”

O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause;
You have redeemed my life.

Lord, You see the wrong done to me;
judge my case.

You see all their malice,
all their plots against me.

You see their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their song.

Pursue them in your anger and destroy them from under the LORD's heaven.

{Aleph} O how is the gold become so dim? How is the goodly colour of it so sore changed? And the stones of the sanctuary thus scattered in the corner of every street?

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!

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.

ד DaletThe nursing infant’s tongue
clings to the roof of his mouth from thirst.
Little children beg for bread,
but no one gives them any.

ל LamedThe kings of the earth
and all the world’s inhabitants did not believe
that an enemy or adversary
could enter Jerusalem’s gates.

They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not 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}."

They hunt our steps, so that we cannot go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

ר ReshThe Lord’s anointed, the breath of our life,
was captured in their traps.
We had said about him,
“We will live under his protection among the nations.”

Rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Edom,
Who lives in the land of Uz.
But the cup [of the wine of God’s wrath] will pass to you as well;
You will become drunk and make yourself naked.

Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us: Behold, and see our reproach.

We have given our hands to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians so that we might have enough bread.

they have taken young men's lives from them, and the boys are hanged up upon trees.

Elders are gone from the gate;
Young men from their music.

The garland of our head is fallen: alas, that ever we sinned so sore!

Because of this our heart is faint,
Because of these things our eyes are dim.

Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?

Lord, restore us to Yourself, so we may return;
renew our days as in former times,

Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity,

the word of the Lord came directly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar Canal. And the Lord’s hand was on him there.

And, looking, I saw a storm-wind coming out of the north, a great cloud with flames of fire coming after one another, and a bright light shining round about it and in the heart of it was something coloured like electrum.

And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.

Under their wings upon all the four corners they had men's hands. Their faces and their wings were toward the four corners:

yet were the wings so, that one ever touched another. When they went, they turned them not about: but each one went straight forward.

So [were] their faces; their wings [were] spread out {upward}; each [had] two touching one another and two covering their bodies.

And I see the living creatures, and lo, one wheel is in the earth, near the living creatures, at its four faces.

The fashion and the work of the wheels was like the sea. The four wheels were joined and made, to look upon, as it had been one wheel in another.

Upon their four sides, when they went, so did they go, - they turned not when they went.

As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four.

So when the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them, and when the creatures rose from the earth, the wheels also rose.

And on the top of the arch which was over their heads was the form of a king's seat, like a sapphire stone; and on the form of the seat was the form of a man seated on it on high.

And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.

As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.

It is the appearance of the likeness of the honour of Jehovah, and I see, and fall on my face, and I hear a voice speaking, and He saith unto me, 'Son of man, stand on thy feet, and I speak with thee.'

And as he was communing with me, the spirit came in to me, and set me up upon my feet: so that I marked the thing, that he said unto me.

And he will say to me, Son of man, I send thee to the sons of Israel, to rebellious nations who rebelled against me: they and their fathers transgressed against me even to this same day.

For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD.

And they, if they give ear to you or if they do not give ear (for they are an uncontrolled people), will see that there has been a prophet among them.

"Now as for you, Son of Man, never be afraid of them or of anything they have to say, because being with them will be like settling down to live among briers, thorn bushes, and scorpions! Don't be afraid of anything they have to say, and don't be awed by their appearance, since they are a rebellious group.

You are to tell them whatever I have to say to them, whether they listen or not, since they are rebellious."