Lamentations 4:1-16

International Standard Version

² Though the precious people of Zion
    were like fine gold,
how they are valued like clay vessels,
    the handiwork of a potter!

³ Even wild animals nurse,
    suckling their young;
but the women of my people are cruel,
    like ostriches in the wilderness.

⁴ The nursing child’s tongue
    cleaves to its palate from thirst.
Young children beg for bread,
    but no one gives them any.

⁵ Those who enjoyed delicacies
    lie desolate in the streets.
Those who were reared wearing purple
    scavenge in piles of trash.

⁶ The guilt of my cherished people surpasses the sin of Sodom,
    which was overthrown in a moment,
        without a hand to help her.

⁷ Her princes^[b] were purer than snow,
    whiter than milk.
Their bodies were more ruddy^[c] than rubies,
    their beards like the color of precious stones.

⁸ Now their faces are blacker than coal;
    they are unrecognized in the streets.
Their skin clings to their bones;
    it has become dry like a stick.

⁹ Those who die by the sword are better off
    than those who die from starvation,
who slowly waste away like those pierced through
    for lack of food from the fields.

¹⁰ With their own hands, compassionate women
    boil their own children—
they become their food—
    when my beloved people were^[d] destroyed.

¹¹ The Lord has exhausted his wrath,
    pouring out his fierce anger.
He kindled a fire in Zion,
    consuming its foundations.

¹² None of the kings of the earth would have believed,
    nor the world’s inhabitants,
that the adversary and the enemy
    could have breached the gates of Jerusalem.

¹³ Due to the sins committed by her prophets,
    and the iniquities of her priests
who shed in her midst,
    the blood of the righteous,
¹⁴ people stagger around in the streets like the blind,
    defiled by blood
unclean so that no one is able
    to touch their clothing.

¹⁵ “Go away! Unclean!”
    they shouted at them.
        “Go away! Go away! Don’t touch!”
When they fled away and wandered,
    those among the nations decreed,
        “They cannot live here!”

¹⁶ The Lord himself separated them;
    he will do nothing more for them.
They did not respect their own priests;
    they did not honor their elders.