Ekhah 1-3
Orthodox Jewish Bible
1 How doth HaIr (the city, Yerushalayim) sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become like an almanah (widow)! She that was great among the Goyim, and sarah (princess) among the provinces, how is she become a forced laborer!
2 She weepeth bitterly in the lailah (night), and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she hath no Menachem (comforter); all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.
3 Yehudah is gone into the Golus (Exile) under affliction, and under great avodah (servitude); she dwelleth among the Goyim; she findeth no manoach (rest); all her rodefim (persecutors) overtook her in dire straits.
4 The darkhei Tziyon (approaches to Tziyon) do mourn, because none come to mo’ed (set feasts); all her she’arim (gates) are desolate; her kohanim sigh, her betulot (virgins) are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are now the rosh (supreme, master); her enemies prosper; for Hashem hath afflicted her because of the multitude of her peysha’im (transgressions); her olalim (little children) are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from Bat Tziyon all her beauty has departed; her sarim (princes) are become like deer that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the rodef (persecutor, pursuer).
7 In the yamim (days) of her affliction and of her persecutions, Yerushalayim remembers all her pleasant things that she had miymei kedem (in the days of old), when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and there was no ozer (helper) for her; the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her downfall.
8 Yerushalayim hath grievously sinned; therefore she is niddah (unclean, Jewish woman’s untouchability during menstruation; Vayikra 15:19); all that honored her despise her, because they have seen her erom (nakedness); yea, she sigheth, and turneth away for shame.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her latter end; therefore she sank appallingly; she had no Menachem (comforter). O Hashem, behold my affliction; for the enemy hath triumphed.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her precious things; for she hath seen how the Goyim entered into her [Beis] Hamikdash, whom Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy Kahal (congregation, community).
11 All her people sigh, they seek lechem; they have given their precious things for bread to revive the nefesh; see, O Hashem, and consider that I am become despised.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Consider, and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith Hashem hath afflicted me in the Yom Charon Af (day of His fierce anger).
13 From above hath He sent eish into my atzamot (bones), and it prevaileth against them; He hath spread a net for my feet, He hath turned me back; He hath made me desolate and kol hayom (ever) languishing.
14 The yoke of my peysha’im hath been fastened by His hand; they [i.e., my sins] intertwine themselves and set upon my tzavar (neck); He hath made my strength to fall; Hashem hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 Hashem hath taken away all my strong ones in my midst; He hath proclaimed a mo’ed (set time) against me to crush my young men; Hashem hath trodden the winepress for the Betulat Bat Yehudah.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with mayim, because the Menachem (comforter) that should refresh my nefesh is far from me; my children are desolate, because the enemy hath prevailed.
17 Tziyon stretcheth forth her hands, yet there is no Menachem (comforter) for her; Hashem hath commanded concerning Ya’akov, that his adversaries should be round about him; Yerushalayim is as a niddah (menstruous woman) among them.
18 Tzaddik is Hashem; for I have rebelled against His mouth; hear, I pray you, kol amim (all people), and behold my sorrow; my betulot and my bochurim are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they have deceived me; my kohanim and my zekenim gave up the ghost (i.e., expired) in HaIr (the City), while they sought okhel (food) to revive their nefashot.
20 Consider, O Hashem how I am in distress; my bowels are troubled; mine lev is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled; without (i.e., outside), the cherev (sword) bereaveth, within (i.e., babayit, at home) it is like mavet (death).
21 They have heard that I sigh; there is no Menachem (comforter); all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that Thou hast done it; Thou bringest the Yom Karata (the day that Thou has proclaimed), that they (all the peoples; see 1:18) may be like me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before Thee; and do unto them, as Thou hast done unto me for all my peysha’im; for my sighs are many, and my lev is faint.
2 How hath Adonoi covered Bat Tziyon with a cloud in His anger, and hurled down from Shomayim unto Eretz the tiferet Yisroel, and remembered not His hadom (footstool) in the Day of His Wrath!
2 Adonoi hath swallowed up all the habitations of Ya’akov, and hath not pitied; He hath torn down in His Wrath the strongholds of Bat Yehudah; He hath brought them down to the ground; chillel (He hath defiled) the mamlachah and the sarim (princes) thereof.
3 He hath cut off in His fierce anger kol keren Yisroel; He hath drawn back His right hand from before the oyev, and He burned against Ya’akov like a flaming eish, which devoureth all around.
4 He hath bent His keshet (bow) like an oyev; He took His stand with His right hand as an adversary, and slaughtered all that were pleasant to the eye in the ohel Bat Tziyon; He poured out His fury like eish.
5 Adonoi was like an oyev; He hath swallowed up Yisroel, He hath swallowed up all her armonot (palaces); He hath destroyed His strongholds, and hath increased in Bat Yehudah mourning and lamentation.
6 And He hath violently destroyed His sukkah, as if it were of a gan (garden); He hath laid waste His Mo’ed; Hashem hath caused Mo’ed and Shabbos to be forgotten in Tziyon, and in the indignation of His anger hath spurned Melech and Kohen.
7 Adonoi hath cast off His Mizbe’ach, He hath disowned His Mikdash, He hath given up into the yad oyev the chomot armonot of hers; they have raised shouts in the Beis Hashem, as in the Yom Mo’ed.
8 Hashem hath purposed to destroy the Chomat Bat Tziyon; He hath stretched out a measuring line, He hath not withdrawn His hand from destroying; therefore He made the rampart and the chomah to lament; they languished together.
9 Her she’arim are sunk into the ground; He hath destroyed and broken her bars; her melech and her sarim (princes) are among the Goyim; the torah is no more; her nevi’im also find no chazon (vision) from Hashem.
10 The Ziknei Bat Tziyon sit upon the ground, and keep silence; they have cast up aphar upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth; the Betulot Yerushalayim hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail from weepings, my insides are troubled, empty and poured upon ha’aretz, for the destruction of Bat Ami; because the olel and the infant swoon in the rechovot of the city.
12 They say to their imahot, Where is grain and yayin? Say they when they swooned like the wounded in the rechovot Ir, when their nefesh ebbed away into the kheyk imahot of them.
13 What thing shall I say to thee? What thing shall I liken to thee, O Bat Yerushalayim? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O Betulat Bat Tziyon? For thy shever (destruction) is as gadol as the yam. Who can heal thee?
14 Thy nevi’im have seen false and worthless visions for thee; and they have not exposed thine avon, to ward off thy captivity; but have seen for thee mase’ot shav and madduchim (false and misleading burdens, oracles).
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at Bat Yerushalayim, saying, Is this the Ir that men call Kelilat Yofi Masos L’Khol HaAretz (perfection in beauty, the joy of the whole earth)?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee; they hiss and gnash their teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; certainly this is the Yom that we waited for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 Hashem hath done that which He had devised; He hath fulfilled His word that He decreed in the yemai kedem; He hath overthrown, and hath not pitied, and He hath caused thine oyev to gloat over thee, He hath exalted the keren of thine adversaries.
18 Their lev cried unto Adonoi, O Chomat Bat Tziyon, let tears run down like a river yomam valailah; give thyself no relief; let not thine eye rest.
19 Arise, cry out balailah; in the beginning of the night watches pour out thine lev like mayim before the face of Adonoi; lift up thy hands to Him for the nefesh of thy ollelim, that faint for hunger on every street corner.
20 Look, Hashem, and consider to whom Thou hast done this. Shall the nashim eat their offspring, the children they have cared for? Shall the Kohen and the Navi be slain in the Mikdash Adonoi?
21 The na’ar and the zaken lie in the dust of the streets; my betulot and my bochurim are fallen by the cherev; Thou hast slain them in the Day of Thy Wrath; Thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast summoned as in a Yom Mo’ed my terrors all around, so that in the Yom Af Hashem none escaped nor remained; those that I have swaddled and reared hath mine oyev consumed.
3 I am the gever that hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2 He hath driven me away, and brought me into choshech, but not into ohr.
3 Surely against me is He turned; He turneth His yad against me kol hayom.
4 My basar and my ohr (skin) hath He made old; He hath broken my atzmot.
5 He hath set up seigeworks against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
6 He hath set me in dark places, like the mesei olam (long dead).
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot escape; He hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and call out, He shutteth out my tefillah.
9 He hath barred my ways with hewn stone, He hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me like a dov (bear) lying in wait, and like an aryeh in mistarim (hiding places).
11 He hath turned aside the darkhei of mine, and pulled me in pieces; He hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent His keshet, and set me as a target for the khetz (arrow).
13 He hath caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my organs.
14 I was a derision to kol ami; and their [mocking] song kol hayom.
15 He hath filled me with merorim (bitter herbs); He hath made me drunk with suffering.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel, He hath covered me with aphar.
17 And Thou hast removed my nefesh far off from shalom; I forgot tovah (prosperity).
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from Hashem;
19 Remember mine oni (affliction) and my misery, the sorrow and the trouble.
20 My nefesh hath them still in remembrance, and is downcast in me.
21 This I recall to my lev, therefore have I hope:
22 Because of the chasdei Hashem we are not consumed, for His rachamim fail not.
23 They are chadashim every boker; great is Thy faithfulness.
24 Hashem is my chelek, saith my nefesh; therefore in hope will I wait for Him.
25 Hashem is tov unto them that wait for Him, to the nefesh that seeketh Him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the Teshu’at Hashem.
27 It is tov for a gever that he bear the ol (yoke) from his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because He hath laid it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the aphar; there may yet be tikvah.
30 He offereth his lekhi (cheek) to him that striketh him; he is filled full with reproach [Isa 50:6].
31 For Adonoi will not cast off l’olam (forever);
32 But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the rov chasadav (the multitude of His mercies).
33 For He doth not afflict willingly nor bring grief to Bnei Ish.
34 To crush under His feet kol asirei eretz (all the prisoners of the earth),
35 To turn aside the mishpat gever (the right of a man) before the face of Elyon,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, Adonoi approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when Adonoi commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of Elyon proceedeth not hara’ot (the woe) and hatov (the good)?
39 Why doth an adam chai (any man alive) complain, a gever for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and test derakheinu (our ways), and let us turn again to Hashem.
41 Let us lift up levavenu (our heart) with our hands unto El baShomayim.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled; Atah lo salachta (Thou hast not pardoned, forgiven).
43 Thou hast covered with af (anger), and pursued us; Thou hast slain, Thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered Thyself with an anan, that our tefillah not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse among the amim.
46 Kol oyveinu (all our enemies) have opened their mouths against us.
47 Pachad (terror) and a snare is come upon us, ruin and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with streams of mayim for the destruction of Bat Ami.
49 Mine eye will flow down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission
50 Till Hashem look down, and behold from Shomayim.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine nefesh because of all the banot of my city.
52 Mine enemies hunted me down, like a tzippor (bird), without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the bor (pit) and cast an even (stone) upon me.
54 Mayim flowed over mine rosh; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon Thy Shem, Hashem, out of the lowest pit.
56 Thou hast heard my voice; close not thine ear at my sighing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near on the Yom that I called upon Thee; Thou saidst, Fear not.
58 Adonoi, Thou hast pleaded the causes of my nefesh; Thou hast redeemed my life.
59 Hashem, Thou hast seen my wrong; uphold my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their machsh’vot against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, Hashem, and all their machsh’vot against me;
62 The whisperings of those that rose up against me, and their muttering against me kol hayom.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; Ani (I) am their mocking song.
64 Render unto them a gemul (recompence), Hashem, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them hardness of lev as thy curse unto them.
66 Pursue in anger and destroy them from under HaShomayim of Hashem.
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