Beginning
The Sorrows of Jerusalem
1 How lonely sits the city
that was full of people!
How she has become like a widow,
who was once great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces
has become a slave!
2 She weeps sorely in the night,
her tears are on her cheeks;
among all her lovers
she has none to comfort her.
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
they have become her enemies.
3 Judah has gone into captivity,
under affliction and great servitude;
she dwells among the nations,
she finds no rest;
all her persecutors overtook her
in the midst of distress.
4 The roads to Zion mourn
because no one comes to the solemn feasts.
All her gates are desolate;
her priests sigh,
her virgins are afflicted,
and she herself suffers bitterly.
5 Her adversaries have become her masters,
her enemies prosper;
for the Lord has afflicted her
because of the multitude of her transgressions.
Her children have gone into captivity
before the enemy.
6 From the daughter of Zion
all her beauty has departed.
Her princes have become like deer
that find no pasture;
they fled without strength
before the pursuer.
7 In the days of her affliction and misery
Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things
that she had in the days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy,
there was no one to help her.
The adversaries saw her
and mocked at her desolation.
8 Jerusalem has sinned grievously;
therefore she has become vile.
All who honored her despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness;
she herself sighs
and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts;
she took no thought of her future;
therefore her fall is astounding;
she has no comforter.
“O Lord, look upon my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed!”
10 The adversary has spread his hand
over all her precious things;
for she has seen the nations
enter her sanctuary,
those whom You commanded
not to enter Your congregation.
11 All her people groan,
as they search for bread;
they trade their treasures for food
to restore their strength.
Look, O Lord, and consider,
for I am despised.
12 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
which was brought upon me,
which the Lord has inflicted
on the day of His fierce anger.
13 From on high He has sent fire into my bones,
and it prevailed against them;
He has spread a net for my feet;
He turned me back;
He has made me desolate
and faint all the day long.
14 The yoke of my transgressions
was bound; by His hand
they were fastened together; they were set upon my neck.
He made my strength fail;
the Lord delivered me into the hands
of those whom I am not able to withstand.
15 The Lord has trampled underfoot
all my mighty men in my midst;
He has called an assembly against me
to crush my young men;
The Lord has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah
as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep;
my eyes flow with tears;
for the comforter, who should relieve my soul,
is far from me.
My children are desolate
for the enemy has prevailed.
17 Zion spreads out her hands,
but there is no one to comfort her;
the Lord has commanded against Jacob
that his neighbors should be his adversaries;
Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them.
18 The Lord is in the right,
for I have rebelled against His commandment.
Hear now, all peoples,
and see my sorrow;
my virgins and my young men
have gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers,
but they deceived me;
my priests and my elders
perished in the city,
while they sought food
to restore their strength.
20 Look, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my soul is greatly troubled;
my heart is overturned within me,
for I have grievously rebelled.
In the street the sword bereaves,
at home it is like death.
21 They have heard my groaning,
yet there is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my trouble;
they are glad that You have done it.
Bring the day that You have announced,
that they become like me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before You,
and do to them
as You have done to me
for all my transgressions;
for my groans are many,
and my heart is faint.
The Anger of God Over Jerusalem
2 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
with a cloud in His anger!
He has cast down from heaven to the earth
the beauty of Israel;
He has not remembered His footstool
in the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up without mercy
all the habitations of Jacob;
In His wrath He has thrown down
the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has brought them down to the ground;
He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger
all the might of Israel;
He has drawn back His right hand
from before the enemy.
He has burned against Jacob
like a flaming fire, devouring all around.
4 He has bent His bow like an enemy,
with his right hand set like an adversary;
He has killed all who were pleasant to His eye;
in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion,
He has poured out His fury like fire.
5 The Lord has become like an enemy;
He has swallowed up Israel,
He has swallowed up all her palaces;
He has destroyed her strongholds,
and has increased mourning and lamentation
in the daughter of Judah.
6 He has violently taken away His tabernacle as if it were a garden;
He has destroyed His place of assembly;
the Lord has caused the solemn feasts and Sabbaths
to be forgotten in Zion.
In his fierce indignation He has despised the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has scorned His altar,
He has disowned His sanctuary;
He has given up the walls of her palaces
into the hand of the enemy.
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord
as on the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord has purposed to destroy
the wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line;
He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying;
therefore He caused the rampart and the wall to lament;
they languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
the Law is no more,
and her prophets find
no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
sit on the ground in silence;
they throw dust on their heads
and gird themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
bow their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes fail with tears,
my spirit is greatly troubled;
my bile is poured on the ground
because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
because the children and infants faint
in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
when they faint like a wounded man
in the streets of the city,
as their life is poured out
on their mothers’ bosom.
13 What can I say for you,
to what shall I liken you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare with you,
that I may comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your devastation is great like the sea;
who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen for you
false and deceptive visions;
they have not revealed your iniquity,
to bring back your captives,
but have seen for you oracles
that are false and misleading.
15 All who pass by
clap their hands at you;
they hiss and shake their heads
at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
“Is this the city that men call
the perfection of beauty,
the joy of the whole earth?”
16 All your enemies
have opened their mouth against you;
they hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Certainly this is the day that we longed for;
we have found it; we have seen it.”
17 The Lord has done what He planned;
He has fulfilled His word
that He had commanded in the days of old.
He has thrown down and has not pitied,
and He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you;
He has exalted the power of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried to the Lord:
O wall of the daughter of Zion,
let your tears run down
like a river day and night;
give yourself no rest,
your eyes no respite!
19 Arise, cry out in the night,
at the beginning of the watches;
pour out your heart like water
before the face of the Lord.
Lift your hands to Him
for the lives of your young children,
who faint for hunger
at the head of every street.
20 Look, O Lord, and consider!
To whom have You done this?
Should the women eat their offspring,
the children who were born healthy?
Should the priest and the prophet be killed
in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie
on the ground in the streets;
my virgins and my young men
have fallen by the sword;
You have killed them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered and not pitied.
22 You have invited as to a feast day the terrors all around;
in the day of the Lord’s anger
no one escaped or survived;
those whom I held and raised
my enemy destroyed.
The Prophet’s Anguish
3 I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of His wrath.
2 He has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light.
3 Surely against me has He turned His hand
continually, the whole day long.
4 My flesh and my skin He has made waste away;
He has broken my bones;
5 He has besieged and enveloped me
with gall and travail.
6 He has set me in dark places,
like the dead of long ago.
7 He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.
8 Even when I cry for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10 He is to me a bear lying in wait,
a lion in hiding.
11 He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12 He has bent His bow
and set me as a target for the arrow.
13 He has caused the arrows of His quiver
to pierce my inward parts.
14 I have become the derision of all my people,
their mocking song all the day.
15 He has filled me with bitterness,
He has sated me with wormwood.
16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and covered me with ashes.
17 My soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten prosperity.
18 So I say, “My strength and my hope
from the Lord have perished.”
19 Remember my affliction and my misery,
the wormwood and the gall.
20 Surely my soul remembers
and is humbled within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed;
His compassions do not fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in Him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
to the soul who seeks Him.
26 It is good that a man should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke
in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
29 let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
30 Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
31 For the Lord
will not cast off forever.
32 But though He causes grief, yet He will have compassion
according to the abundance of His mercies.
33 For He does not afflict from His heart,
nor grieve the sons of men.
34 To crush underfoot
all the prisoners of the earth,
35 to turn aside the justice due a man
in the presence of the Most High,
36 to subvert a man in his cause,
the Lord does not approve.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.