1 How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How she has become as a widow! She that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, how she has become tributary!

² She weepeth sorely in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.

³ Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude. She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest; all her persecutors overtook her in her straits.

⁴ The highways 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.

⁵ Her adversaries are the master, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her. For the multitude of her transgressions, her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.

⁶ And from the daughter of Zion, all her beauty is departed; her princes have become like harts that find no pasture, and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.

⁷ 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 mocked at her Sabbaths.

⁸ Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she has become a wanderer. All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

⁹ Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end. Therefore she came down wondrously; she had no comforter. “O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy hath magnified himself!”