Her adversaries have become her masters, Her enemies are secure; For the Lord has caused her grief Because of the multitude of her wrongdoings; Her little ones have gone away As captives led by the enemy.

Her uncleanness was in her garment’s seams; She did not think of her future. So she has fallen in an astonishing way; She has no comforter. “See, Lord, my affliction, For the enemy has honored himself!”

All her people groan, seeking bread; They have given their treasures for food To restore their lives. “See, Lord, and look, For I am despised.”

“Is it nothing to all you who pass this way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain Which was inflicted on me, With which the Lord tormented me on the day of His fierce anger.

The yoke of my wrongdoings is bound; By His hand they are woven together. They have come upon my neck; He has made my strength fail. The Lord has handed me over To those against whom I am not able to stand.

The Lord has thrown away all my strong men In my midst; He has called an appointed time against me To crush my young men; The Lord has trodden as in a wine press The virgin daughter of Judah.

Zion stretches out with her hands; There is no one to comfort her; The Lord has commanded regarding Jacob That those around him become his adversaries; Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them.

“The Lord is righteous, For I have rebelled against His command; Hear now, all peoples, And see my pain; My virgins and my young men Have gone into captivity.

See, Lord, for I am in distress; My spirit is greatly troubled; My heart is overturned within me, For I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword has made women childless; In the house it is like death.

God’s Anger over Israel

How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion With a cloud in His anger! He has hurled The glory of Israel from heaven to earth, And has not remembered His footstool In the day of His anger.

The Lord has destroyed; He has not spared All the settlements of Jacob. In His wrath He has overthrown The strongholds of the daughter of Judah, He has hurled them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its leaders.

The Lord has become like an enemy. He has engulfed Israel; He has engulfed all its palaces, He has destroyed its strongholds And caused great mourning and grieving in the daughter of Judah.

And He has treated His tabernacle violently, like a despised garden; He has destroyed His appointed meeting place. The Lord has caused The appointed feast and Sabbath in Zion to be forgotten, And He has despised king and priest In the indignation of His anger.

The Lord has rejected His altar, He has repudiated His sanctuary; He has handed over The walls of her palaces to the enemy. They have made a noise in the house of the Lord As on the day of an appointed feast.

The Lord determined to destroy The wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line, He has not restrained His hand from destroying, And He has caused rampart and wall to mourn; They have languished together.

Her gates have sunk into the ground, He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her leaders are among the nations; The Law is gone. Her prophets, too, find No vision from the Lord.

The Lord has done what He determined; He has accomplished His word Which He commanded from days of old. He has torn down without sparing, And He has helped the enemy to rejoice over you; He has exalted the might of your adversaries.

Their heart cried out to the Lord: “You wall of the daughter of Zion, Let your tears stream down like a river day and night; Give yourself no relief, Let your eyes have no rest.

Arise, whimper in the night At the beginning of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water Before the presence of the Lord; Raise your hands to Him For the life of your little ones Who languish because of hunger At the head of every street.

See, Lord, and look! With whom have You dealt this way? Should women really eat their children, The little ones who were born healthy? Should priest and prophet really be killed In the sanctuary of the Lord?

You called as on the day of an appointed feast My terrors on every side; And there was no one who survived or escaped On the day of the Lord’s anger. As for those whom I brought forth healthy and whom I raised, My enemy annihilated them.”

So I say, “My strength has failed, And so has my hope from the Lord.”

The Lord’s acts of mercy indeed do not end, For His compassions do not fail.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I wait for Him.”

The Lord is good to those who await Him, To the person who seeks Him.