1 Jerusalem’s streets, once thronged with people, are silent now. Like a widow broken with grief, she sits alone in her mourning. She, once queen of nations, is now a slave.

² She sobs through the night; tears run down her cheeks. Among all her lovers,^[a] there is none to help her. All her friends are now her enemies.

³ Why is Judah led away, a slave? Because of all the wrong she did to others, making them her slaves. Now she sits in exile far away. There is no rest, for those she persecuted have turned and conquered her.

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, no longer filled with joyous throngs who come to celebrate the Temple feasts; the city gates are silent, her priests groan, her virgins have been dragged away. Bitterly she weeps.

⁵ Her enemies prosper, for the Lord has punished Jerusalem for all her many sins; her young children are captured and taken far away as slaves.

⁶ All her beauty and her majesty are gone; her princes are like starving deer that search for pasture—helpless game too weak to keep on running from their foes.

⁷ And now in the midst of all Jerusalem’s sadness she remembers happy bygone days. She thinks of all the precious joys she had before her mocking enemy struck her down—and there was no one to give her aid.

⁸ For Jerusalem sinned so horribly; therefore, she is tossed away like dirty rags. All who honored her despise her now, for they have seen her stripped naked and humiliated. She groans and hides her face.

⁹ She indulged herself in immorality and refused to face the fact that punishment was sure to come. Now she lies in the gutter with no one left to lift her out. “O Lord,” she cries, “see my plight. The enemy has triumphed.”