Beginning
1 How solitary sits the city that was full of people! She is as a widow. She who was great among the nations, princess among the provinces, has been made a forced laborer!
2 She weeps continually in the night, and her tears run down her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt unfaithfully with her and are her enemies.
3 Judah has been carried away captive because of affliction and because of great servitude. She dwells among the heathen and finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her in the midst of her distress.
4 The ways of Zion lament, because no one comes to the solemn feasts; all her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in heaviness.
5 Her adversaries are her masters; her enemies prosper. For the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy,
6 and all her beauty has departed from the daughter of Zion. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture; and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered the days of her affliction, and of her rebellion, all her pleasant things that she had in times past, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and no one helped her. The adversary saw her and mocked her Sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore, she is filthy. All who honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness. Indeed, she sighs and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts. She did not remember her future, therefore she fell spectacularly. She had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction. For the enemy is proud.
10 The enemy has stretched out his hand upon all her pleasant things. For she has seen the heathen enter into her Sanctuary, whom You Commanded not to enter into Your congregation.
11 All her people sigh and seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul. See, O LORD, and consider. For I have become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass this way? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me, with which the LORD has afflicted on the day of His fierce wrath.
13 From above has He sent fire into my bones, which prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet, turned me back. He has made me desolate, daily in heaviness.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound upon His Hand. They are wrapped and come up upon my neck. He has made my strength fall. The LORD has delivered me into their hands. I am not able to rise up.
15 The LORD has tread all my valiant men in the midst of me under foot. He has called an assembly against me, to destroy my young men. The LORD has tread the winepress upon the virgin, the daughter of Judah.
16 For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion stretches out her hands, and there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has appointed the enemies of Jacob all around him. Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman in the midst of them.
18 The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His Commandment. Hear, please, all people, and behold 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 their food to refresh their souls.
20 Behold, O LORD, how I am troubled! My bowels swell! My heart is turned within me, for I am full of heaviness! The sword bereaves in the street, as death does at home.
21 They have heard that I mourn. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble and are glad that You have done it. You will bring the day that You have pronounced; and they shall be like me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before You. Do to them as You have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many and my heart is heavy.
2 How the LORD has darkened the daughter of Zion in His wrath, has cast down the beauty of Israel from Heaven to the Earth, and not remembered His footstool on the day of His wrath!
2 The LORD has destroyed all the habitations of Jacob, and not spared. He has thrown down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah in His wrath. He has cast them down to the ground. He has polluted the kingdom and its princes.
3 In His fierce wrath He has cut off all the horn of Israel. He has drawn back His right Hand from before the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flame of fire, which devours all around.
4 He has bent His bow like an enemy. His right Hand was stretched up, as an adversary, and killed all that was pleasant to the eye in the Tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. He poured out His wrath like fire.
5 The LORD was like an enemy. He has devoured Israel, consumed all its palaces. He has destroyed its strongholds and has increased lamentation and mourning in the daughter of Judah.
6 For He has destroyed His Tabernacle. Like a garden, He has destroyed His Congregation. The LORD has caused the Feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and has spurned, in the indignation of His wrath, the king and the priest.
7 The LORD has forsaken His Altar. He has abhorred His Sanctuary. He has given 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 determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He stretched out a line. He has not withdrawn His Hand from destroying. Therefore, He caused the rampart and the wall to lament. They were destroyed together.
9 Her gates have sunk to the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles. The Law is no more, nor can her Prophets receive vision from the LORD.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silent. They have thrown dust upon their heads. They have girded themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes fail with tears. My bowels swell. My liver is poured upon the earth for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and infants swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They have said to their mothers, “Where is bread and drink?” when they swooned like the wounded in the streets of the city, when they gave up the ghost in their mother’s bosom.
13 How shall I witness to you? To what thing shall I compare you, O daughter Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, so that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter Zion? For your breach is great, like the sea. Who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen empty and foolish things for you. And they have not discovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity, but have seen false prophecies for you, and causes of banishment.
15 All who pass by the way, clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head upon the daughter Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that is called, ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole Earth?’”
16 All your enemies have opened their mouth against you. They hiss and gnash the teeth, saying, “Let us devour it! Certainly, this is the day that we looked for! We have found and seen it!”
17 The LORD has done that which He had purposed. He has fulfilled His Word that He had determined from days of old. He has thrown down, and not spared. He has caused your enemy to rejoice over you, and set up the horn of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried to the LORD, “O wall of the daughter Zion! Let tears run down like a river, day and night! Take no rest for yourself or let the apple of your eye cease!
19 “Arise! Cry in the night! In the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the LORD. Lift up your hands toward Him for the life of your young children who faint for hunger in the corners of all the streets.”
20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, nursing children? Shall 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 on the day of Your wrath. You have killed, and not spared.
22 You have called my terrors, all around, as on a Feast Day; so that on the day of the LORD’s wrath, no one escaped or remained. Those whom I have nourished and brought up my enemy has consumed.
3 I am the man who has seen affliction in the rod of His indignation.
2 He has led me, and brought me into darkness, but not to light.
3 Surely, He has turned against me; His Hand overturns me all day long.
4 He has caused my flesh and my skin to grow old. He has broken my bones.
5 He has built against me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
6 He has set me in dark places, as those who are dead forever.
7 He has put a hedge around me, so that I cannot get out. He has made my chains heavy.
8 Also, when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.
9 He has blocked my way with hewn stone, turned away my paths.
10 He was, to me, like a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.
11 He has blocked my way and torn me in pieces. He has made me desolate.
12 He has bent His bow and made me a mark for the arrow.
13 He caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my core.
14 I was a laughingstock to all my people, their song all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitterness, made me drunk with wormwood.
16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel and covered me with ashes.
17 Thus, my soul was far away from peace. I forgot what is good.
18 And I said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.”
19 Remember my affliction and my mourning, the wormwood and the bitterness.
20 My soul has remembered them and is humbled in me.
21 I consider this in my heart; therefore, I have hope.
22 It is because of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed. His compassions do not fail.
23 They are renewed 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 trust in Him, to the soul that seeks Him.
26 It is good to wait, watchfully yet silently, for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man that he bears the yoke in his youth.
28 He sits alone and keeps silent because he has borne it upon him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust. Perhaps there may be hope.
30 He gives his cheek to him who strikes him. He is fully filled with reproach.
31 For the LORD will not forsake forever.
32 But though He sends affliction, He will still have compassion, according to the multitude of His mercies.
33 For He does not afflict willingly or grieve the children of men.
34 To stamp under His feet all the prisoners of the Earth,
35 to divert the rights of a man before the Face of the Most High,
36 to subvert a man in his cause, the LORD does not approve.
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