1 How the populous city has been left alone! The great among the nations has become like a widow, The lady of the provinces has been made a tributary.
2 She cries bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. She has no one to console her from all her lovers; All her friends failed her, they became her enemies.
3 Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction and hard bondage; She dwelt among the nations, and she found no rest; All her pursuers caught up with her between the narrows.
4 The highways of Zion are in mourning, because there is no one who comes to the solemn festivals; All her gates are desolate, her priests groan, her virgins are afflicted, and she is bitter.
5 Her enemies have been made princes, her haters have prospered, For the Lord afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions; Her children went into captivity before the enemy.
6 She lost all her beauty from the daughter of Zion; Her princes were like deer that find no pasture, And they walked without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy and there was no one to help her, remembered the days of her affliction, and her transgressions, and all the pleasant things she had from of old. . Her enemies looked upon her, and mocked her fall.
8 Jerusalem committed sin, for which she has been removed; All those who honored her have despised her, because they saw her shame; And she sighs, and she turns back.
9 Her filth is in her skirts, and she did not remember the end of her; Therefore, she has descended surprisingly, and she has no one to comfort her. See, O Lord, my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself.
10 The enemy stretched out his hand from her to all his precious things; She has seen the nations enter into her sanctuary, whom you commanded not to enter your congregation.
11 All her people sought her bread sighing; They gave for food all the precious things of it, to entertain life. Look, O Jehovah, and see that I am downcast.
12 Aren’t those of you who pass by on the road moved? Look and see if there is pain like my pain that has come to me; For the Lord has distressed me in the day of her fiery fury.
13 From above he sent fire that consumes my bones; He has spread a net for my feet, turned me back, left me desolate, and in pain all day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions has been bound by her hand; Bonds have been cast on my neck; he has weakened my strength; The Lord has handed me over into hands against which I will not be able to rise.
15 The Lord has trampled all my strong men in my midst; He called a company against me to destroy my young men; The Lord has trodden down the virgin daughter of Judah like a winepress.
16 For this reason I cry; My eyes, my eyes flow waters, Because the comforter who gave rest to my soul has departed from me; My children are destroyed, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion stretched out his hands; He has no one to console her; The Lord gave a commandment against Jacob, that his neighbors should be his enemies; Jerusalem was an object of abomination among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; I rebelled against his word. Hear now, all people, and see my pain; My virgins and my young men were taken into captivity.
19 I cried out to my lovers, but they have deceived me; My priests and my elders in the city perished, Seeking food for themselves to entertain their lives.
20 See, O Lord, I am troubled, my bowels are boiling. My heart is troubled within me, because I rebelled greatly. Outside the sword wreaked havoc; inside death ruled.
21 They heard him groaning, but there is no comforter for me; All my enemies have heard my evil, they rejoice in what you did. You will bring the day that you have announced, and they will be like me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before you, And do to them as you did to me for all my transgressions; Because my sighs are many, and my heart is sore.
1 How the Lord has darkened the daughter of Zion in his anger! He brought down the beauty of Israel from heaven to the earth, And he did not remember her footstool in the day of her wrath.
2 The Lord destroyed her, and did not forgive; He destroyed all the tents of Jacob in his wrath; He destroyed the strongholds of the daughter of Judah, He humiliated the kingdom and its princes.
3 He cut off all the power of Israel with his fierce anger; She withdrew her right hand from him in the face of the enemy, And it burned in Jacob like a flame of fire that has devoured around her.
4 He bent his bow as an enemy, established his right hand as an adversary of him, and destroyed all that was beautiful of him. In the tent of the daughter of Zion he poured out his anger like fire.
5 The Lord became like an enemy, he destroyed Israel; He destroyed all her palaces, demolished her strongholds, and multiplied sadness and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.
6 He removed the tent from him like a garden bower; He destroyed the place where they gathered; The Lord has caused the feasts and the Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, And in his fierce anger he has rejected the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has rejected his altar, he has despised his sanctuary; He has given the walls of his palaces into the hand of the enemy; They made his voice resound in the house of the Lord as on a festival day.
8 The Lord determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He extended the line, he did not retract his hand from destruction; So he made the rampart and the wall mourn; They were desolated together.
9 His gates were thrown to the ground, he destroyed and broke their bars; Their king and his princes are among the nations where there is no law; His prophets also found no vision of Jehovah.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sat on the ground and were silent; They threw dust on their heads, they girded themselves with sackcloth; The virgins of Jerusalem bowed their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes fainted with tears, my bowels were moved, My liver poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, When the child and the suckling fainted in the streets of the city.
12 They said to their mothers: Where is the wheat and the wine? They fainted like wounded men in the streets of the city, Shedding their souls into their mothers’ laps.
13 What witness shall I bring to you, or to whom will I make you like, daughter of Jerusalem? To whom shall I compare you to comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For great as the sea is your destruction; who will heal you?
14 Your prophets saw vanity and folly for you; And they did not discover your sin to prevent your captivity, But they preached to you vain prophecies and misguidance.
fifteen All those who passed along the road clapped their hands over you; They hissed and shook their heads contemptuously at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying: Is this the city of perfect beauty, the joy of the whole earth?
16 All your enemies have opened their mouths against you; They mocked, and gnashed their teeth; They said: Let us devour it; Certainly this is the day we have been waiting for; We have found it, we have seen it.
17 Jehovah has done what he intended; He has fulfilled his word, which he had commanded from of old. He destroyed, and did not forgive; And he has made the enemy rejoice over you, And he has exalted the power of your adversaries.
18 Their hearts cried out to the Lord; O daughter of Zion, shed tears like a stream day and night; Do not rest, nor let the apple of your eyes cease.
19 Get up, shout in the night, when the watches begin; Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord; Raise your hands to him imploring the life of your little ones, who faint from hunger at the entrances of all the streets.
20 Look, O Lord, and consider to whom you have done so. Should women eat the fruit of their wombs, the little ones in their tender care? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 Children and old people were lying on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men fell by the sword; You killed in the day of your anger; you beheaded, you did not forgive.
22 You have summoned my fears from all sides, as on a day of solemnity; And in the day of the Lord’s wrath there was no one who escaped or remained alive; Those that I raised and maintained, my enemy destroyed them.
1 I am the man who has seen affliction under the lash of his anger.
2 He guided me and carried me in darkness, and not in light;
3 Surely he turned against me and stirred his hand all day.
4 He made my flesh and my skin old; he broke my bones;
5 He built bulwarks against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and toil.
6 He left me in darkness, like those long dead.
7 He has surrounded me on all sides, and I cannot get out; He has made my chains heavier;
8 Even when I cried and cried, he closed his ears to my prayer;
9 He fenced my ways with hewn stone, he made my paths crooked.
10 He was to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding places;
11 He has perverted my ways and torn me to pieces; He left me devastated.
12 He bent his bow, and made me a target for the arrow.
13 He brought the arrows from his quiver into my bowels.
14 I was a mockery to all my people, a mockery of them every day;
15 He filled me with bitterness, he made me drunk with wormwood.
16 He broke my teeth with gravel, he covered me with ashes;
17 And my soul departed from peace, I forgot good,
18 And I said, My strength is perished, and my hope in the Lord.
19 Remember my affliction and my despondency, the wormwood and the gall;
20 I will still remember him, because my soul is cast down within me;
21 I will consider this in my heart, therefore I will wait.
22 Through the mercy of the Lord we are not consumed, because his mercy never fails.
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24 My portion is the Lord, says my soul; therefore I will wait for him.
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
26 It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of Jehovah.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke from his youth.
28 Let him sit alone and remain silent, because it is God who imposed it on him;
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust, if there is still hope;
30 Turn your cheek to him who hurts you, and be filled with shame.
31 For the Lord does not cast away forever;
32 But if he grieves, he also has compassion according to the multitude of his mercies;
33 For he does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men.
34 Crush underfoot all the prisoners of the land,
35To twist the right of man before the presence of the Most High,
36 To upset man in his cause, the Lord does not approve.
37 Who will be the one who says that something happened that the Lord did not command?
38 Does not evil and good come from the mouth of the Most High?
39 Why does the living man mourn? Let man lament his sin.
40 Let us search our ways, and seek, and return to the Lord;
41 Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven;
42 We have rebelled, and were disloyal; you did not forgive.
43 You displayed your anger and persecuted us; you killed, and did not forgive;
44 You covered yourself with a cloud so that our prayer would not pass away;
45 You have made us a disgrace and an abomination among the people.
46 All our enemies opened their mouths against us;
47 Fear and a snare were for us, desolation and destruction;
48 My eyes pour out rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eyes drip and do not cease, for there is no relief
50 Until the Lord looks and sees from heaven;
51 My eyes grieved my soul for all the daughters of my city.
52 My enemies hunted me like a bird, for no reason;
53 They bound my life in a cistern, they laid a stone on me;
54 Waters covered my head; I said: I am dead.
55 I called on your name, O Lord, from the deep prison;
56 You heard my voice; do not hide your ear from the clamor of my sighs.
57 You came near on the day I called upon you; You said: Don’t be afraid.
58 You pleaded, Lord, the cause of my soul; you redeemed my life.
59 You have seen my grievance, O Lord; defend my cause.
60 You have seen all his vengeance, all his thoughts against me.
61 You have heard their reproach, O Lord, all their plots against me;
62 The sayings of those who rose up against me, and his plot against me all day long.
63 His sitting and his rising look; I am his song.
64 Give them recompense, O Jehovah, according to the work of his hands.
65 Give them over to hardening of heart; your curse be upon them.
66 Pursue them in your fury, and destroy them from under the heaven, O Lord.
1 How the gold has become black! How good gold has lost its shine! The stones of the sanctuary are scattered at the crossroads of all the streets.
2 The children of Zion, precious and esteemed above pure gold, How are they counted as earthen vessels, the work of a potter’s hands!
3 Even jackals breastfeed and nurse their cubs; The daughter of my people is cruel like the ostriches in the desert.
4 The infant’s tongue stuck to his palate because of thirst; The little ones asked for bread, and there was no one to distribute it to them.
5 Those who ate delicately were devastated in the streets; Those who grew up in purple embraced the dunghills.
6 For the iniquity of the daughter of my people increased more than the sin of Sodom, which was destroyed in a moment, without companies of her encamping against her.
7 Her nobles were purer than snow, whiter than milk; Her bodies were blonder than coral, her figure more beautiful than sapphire.
8 Darker than blackness is her appearance; They don’t know them on the streets; Her skin is stuck to her bones, dry as a stick.
9 Blessed were those killed by the sword than those killed by famine; Because these died little by little for lack of the fruits of the earth.
10 The hands of pious women cooked their children; Their own children served them as food on the day of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord fulfilled his wrath, he poured out his fierce anger; And he kindled a fire in Zion, which consumed even its foundations.
12 Never have the kings of the earth, nor all who live in the world, believed that the enemy and the adversary would enter through the gates of Jerusalem.
13 It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the wickedness of her priests, Who shed the blood of the righteous among her.
14 They staggered like blind men in the streets, they were defiled with blood, so that they could not touch their garments.
15 Get away! Filthy! they shouted at them; Stay away, stay away, don’t touch! They fled and were scattered; It was said among the nations: They will dwell here no more.
16 The wrath of the LORD has turned them away, he will look upon them no more; They did not respect the presence of the priests, nor did they have compassion for the elderly.
17 Our eyes have even failed, waiting in vain for our help; In our hope we wait for a nation that cannot save.
18 They hunted our steps, so that we would not walk in our streets; Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; because our end has come.
19 Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of heaven; They pursued us on the mountains, in the desert they laid ambushes for us.
20 The breath of our lives, the anointed of the Lord, of whom we said, In his shadow we will have life among the nations, was caught in his snares.
21 Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, who dwells in the land of Uz; Even the cup will come to you; you will get drunk, and you will vomit.
22 Your punishment is fulfilled, O daughter of Zion; She will never again take you captive. He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; She will discover your sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what has happened to us; Look, and see our disgrace.
2 Our inheritance has passed to strangers, Our houses to strangers.
3 We are orphans without a father; Our mothers are like widows.
4 We drink our water for money; We buy our firewood by price.
5 We have persecution upon us; We grow weary, and there is no rest for us.
6 We stretched out our hand to the Egyptian and the Assyrian, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers sinned and are dead; And we bear their punishment.
8 Servants ruled over us; There was no one to rescue us from his hand.
9 At the risk of our lives we brought our bread Before the sword of the desert.
10 Our skin became black like an oven Because of the burning of hunger.
11 They raped the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.
12 They hanged the princes by their hands; They did not respect the faces of the old.
13 They took the young men to grind, And the boys fainted under the weight of the wood.
14 The old are no longer seen at the door, The young have left their songs.
15 The joy of our hearts has ceased; Our dance was changed into mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our heads; Woe now to us! because we sin.
17 Because of this our heart was saddened, Because of this our eyes were darkened,
18 Because of Mount Zion that is desolate; Sluts walk around him.
19 But you, Jehovah, will remain forever; Your throne from generation to generation.
20 Why do you forget us completely, And abandon us for such a long time?
21 Return us, O Lord, to you, and we will return; Renew our days as in the beginning.
22 Because you have rejected us; You have been very angry with us.
