How desolate the city sits [that] was full of people! She has become like a widow, [once] great among the nations! Like a woman of nobility in the provinces, she has become a forced laborer.

She weeps bitterly in the night, her tears [are] on her cheeks; she has no comforter among all her lovers. All her friends have been unfaithful to her; they have become her enemies.

Judah has gone into exile with misery and under hard servitude; she lives among the nations, she has not found a resting place; all her pursuers have overtaken her amidst [her] distress.

Her foes have become [her] {master}, her enemies are at ease; Yahweh has made her suffer because of the greatness of her transgressions. Her children have gone away, captive before the foe.

All her majesty has gone away from the daughter of Zion; her princes have become like young stags that have not found pasture; they have gone away without strength, before the pursuer.

Her uncleanness [was] in her skirts; she did not remember her future, she has descended beyond understanding, there is no comforter for her. See, O Yahweh, my persecution! [My] enemy has been made great!

The enemy has stretched out his hand over all her treasures; for she has seen the nations, they entered her sanctuary, those whom you commanded not to enter in your assembly.

The Lord has rejected all my mighty ones in my midst. He called an assembly against me, to crush my young men; [like in] a wine press, the Lord has trodden [on] the virgin daughter of Judah.

For these [things], I am weeping, {my eyes flow with tears}; because a comforter is far from me, one to restore my life. My sons are desolate because [the] enemy has prevailed.

Zion stretches out her hands; there is no one to comfort her. Yahweh has commanded against Jacob, [that] those surrounding him [should be] his enemies; Jerusalem has become a defilement among them.

See, O Yahweh, that {I am in distress}; {my stomach} is in torment, my heart has turned inside me because I have certainly rebelled. From outside a sword brings bereavement, inside the house [it is] like death.

How, {in his anger}, the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion in a cloud! He has thrown down from heavens [to] earth the splendor of Israel, and he has not remembered his footstool in the day of {his anger}.

The Lord has devoured; he has not shown mercy to all the dwellings of Jacob; he has broken down in his wrath the fortifications of the daughter of Judah; he has leveled to the ground, he has dishonored the kingdom and its commanders.

He has cut down {in fierce anger} all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn his right hand from the faces of [the] enemy, and he has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, it has consumed all around.

He has bent his bow like an enemy; he has set his right hand like a foe, and he has slain all [the] treasures of [the] eye; in the tent of the daughter of Zion, he has poured out his anger like fire.

The Lord has become like an enemy; he has destroyed Israel; he has destroyed all its citadel fortresses; he has ruined all its fortifications and multiplied lamentation and mourning in the daughter of Judah.

He has broken down {his dwelling} place like the garden; he has ruined his appointed feasts; Yahweh has made [them] forget in Zion {festival} and Sabbath, and he has despised in his anger king and priest.

The Lord has rejected his altar; he has rejected his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hands of the enemy the walls of its citadel fortresses. They have cried out in the house of Yahweh like a day of an appointed feast.

Yahweh has planned to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He measured [with] a line; he has not restrained his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to mourn; together they have languished away.

Her gates have sunk into the earth; he has ruined and broken her bars, her kings and its princes [are] among the nations; there is no more law. Also, her prophets have not found a revelation from Yahweh.

Yahweh has done what he has planned; he has fulfilled his promise that he ordained from the days of old; he has demolished and not shown mercy; he has made an enemy rejoice over you, he has exalted the {might} of your foes.

You have summoned my horror from all around, as if for a feast day; no one on the day of Yahweh's anger [is] a fugitive and a survivor; whoever I have cared for and reared, my enemy has destroyed.

I am a man who has seen misery, under the rod of his wrath.

He has driven me along, he brought darkness and not light.

Surely he has turned his hand against me, all day long.

He has worn out my flesh and skin, he has broken my bones.

{He has besieged} and engulfed me with bitterness and hardship.

In darkness he has let me dwell like [the] dead of long ago.

He has built a wall around me, I cannot go out; he has made my bronze fetters heavy.

He has blocked my ways with dressed stones; he has made my paths crooked.

He has forsaken my way and torn me to pieces; he has caused me desolation.

He has bent his bow and set me as the target for the arrow.

He has filled me with bitterness, he has drenched me [with] wormwood.

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

My life has been removed from peace, I have forgotten goodness.

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

For even though he causes grief he has compassion according to the greatness of his royal love.

to subvert a person in a legal dispute --the Lord has not found delight [in these things].

{Who can speak} and it will happen [if] the Lord has not commanded [it]?

Water has flown over my head, I said, "I am cut off."

How [the] gold has grown dim, the pure gold has changed. The stones of holiness are scattered at the head of every street.

Even the jackal bears the beast and nurses their cubs; [but] the daughter of my people has become ruthless, like ostriches in the wilderness.

[Now] their appearance is blacker than soot, they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones, it has become dry like wood.

Yahweh has completed his anger, he has poured out {his fierce anger}; he has kindled a fire in Zion, it consumed her foundations.

The presence of Yahweh has scattered them, he will no longer watch over them; {they did not honor the priests}, they did not show mercy [to] elders.

They hunted our steps, from walking in our streets; our end has come near, {our days are finished}, our end has come.

Remember, O Yahweh, what has become of us; take note, and see our disgrace!

Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses, to foreigners.

The joy of our hearts has stopped; our circle-dancing has changed to a mourning ceremony.

The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!

Because of this, our heart has become faint, because of these, our eyes have become dim.