Beginning

1 How solitary and lonely sits the city [Jerusalem] that was [once] full of people! How like a widow has she become! She who was ^[a]great among the nations and princess among the provinces has become a tributary [in servitude]!

² She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are [constantly] on her cheeks. Among all her lovers (allies) she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.^(A)

³ Judah has gone into exile [to escape] from the affliction and laborious servitude [of the homeland]. She dwells among the [heathen] nations, but she finds no rest; all her persecutors overtook her amid the [dire] straits [of her distress].

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly or the appointed feasts. All her gates are desolate, her priests sigh and groan, her maidens are grieved and vexed, and she herself is in bitterness.

⁵ Her adversaries have become the head; her enemies prosper. For the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her young children have gone into captivity before the enemy.^(B)

⁶ From the Daughter of Zion all her beauty and majesty have departed. Her princes have become like harts that find no pasture; they have fled without strength before the pursuer.

⁷ Jerusalem [earnestly] remembers in the days of her affliction, in the days of her [compulsory] wanderings and her bitterness, all the pleasant and precious things that she had from the days of old. When her people fell into and at the hands of the adversary, and there was none to help her, the enemy [gloated as they] looked at her, and they mocked at her desolations and downfall.

⁸ Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she has become an unclean thing and has been removed. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; yes, she herself groans and sighs and turns [her face] away.

⁹ Her filthiness was in and on her skirts; she did not [seriously and earnestly] consider her final end. Therefore she has come down [from throne to slavery] singularly and astonishingly; she has no comforter. O Lord [cries Jerusalem], look at my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself [in triumph]!

¹⁰ The adversary has spread out his hand upon all her precious and desirable things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary [of the temple]—^[b]when You commanded that they should not even enter Your congregation [in the outer courts].^(C)

¹¹ All her people groan and sigh, seeking for bread; they have given their desirable and precious things [in exchange] for food to revive their strength and bring back life. See, O Lord, and consider how wretched and lightly esteemed, how vile and abominable, I have become!

¹² Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was dealt out to me, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger!

¹³ From above He has sent fire into my bones, and it prevailed against them. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back. He has made me hopelessly miserable and faint all the day long.

¹⁴ The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they were twined together; they were set upon my neck. He has made my strength fail and [me to] stumble; the Lord has delivered me into the hands of those I am unable to resist or withstand.^(D)

¹⁵ The Lord has made of no account all my [Jerusalem’s] mighty men in the midst of me; He has proclaimed a set time against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden as in a winepress the Virgin Daughter of Judah.

¹⁶ For these things I weep; my eyes overflow with tears, because a comforter, one who could refresh and restore my soul, is far from me. My children are desolate and perishing, for the enemy has prevailed.^(E)

¹⁷ Zion stretches forth her hands, but there is no comforter for her. The Lord has commanded concerning and against Jacob that his neighbors should be his adversaries; Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them [an object of contempt].

¹⁸ The Lord is righteous (just and in the right); for I have rebelled against His commandment (His word). Hear, I pray you, all you peoples, and look at my sorrow and suffering; my maidens and my young men have gone into captivity.

¹⁹ I [Jerusalem] called to my lovers [allies], but they deceived me. My priests and my elders expired in the city while they sought food to save their lives.

²⁰ Behold, O Lord, how distressed I am! My vital parts (emotions) are in tumult and are deeply disturbed; my heart cannot rest and is violently agitated within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Outside the house the sword bereaves, at home there is [famine, pestilence] death!

²¹ [My foes] have heard that I [Jerusalem] sigh and groan, that I have no comforter [in You]. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad [O Lord] that You have done it. You will bring the day [of Judah’s punishment] that you have foretold and proclaimed; [it involves also my foes’ punishment] and they will become like me.^(F)

²² Let all their wickedness come before You; and deal with them as You have dealt with me because of all my transgressions; for my sighs and groans are many and my heart is faint.

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 and splendor of Israel and has not [earnestly] remembered His footstool in the day of His anger!

² The Lord has swallowed up all the country places and habitations of Jacob and has spared not nor pitied; He has demolished in His wrath the strongholds of the Daughter of Judah. He has cast down to the ground the kingdom and its rulers, polluting them and depriving them of their sanctity.

³ He has broken off in His fierce anger every horn (means of defense) of Israel. He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy. And He has burned amidst Jacob like a flaming fire consuming all around.

⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy; He has stood with His right hand set like a foe and has slain all the delights and pride of the eye; on and in the tent of the Daughter of Zion He has poured out His wrath like fire.

⁵ The Lord has become like an enemy; He has destroyed Israel. He has destroyed all its palaces, has laid in ruins its strongholds, and has multiplied in the Daughter of Judah groaning and moaning and lamentation.

⁶ And He has violently broken down His temple like a booth or hedge of a garden; He has destroyed the place of His appointed assembly. The Lord has caused the solemn appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion and has spurned and rejected in the indignation of His anger the king and the priest.

⁷ The Lord has scorned, rejected, and cast off His altar; He has abhorred and disowned His sanctuary. He has given into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces [and high buildings]; they have raised a clamor in the house of the Lord as on a day of a solemn appointed feast.

⁸ The Lord purposed to lay in ruins the [city] wall of the Daughter of Zion. He marked it off by measuring line; He restrained not His hand from destroying. He made rampart and wall 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 [exiled] among the nations; the law is no more; her prophets also obtain no vision from the Lord.

¹⁰ The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground keeping silent; they have cast dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth. The maidens of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground [says Jeremiah].

¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping, my emotions are deeply disturbed, my heart is poured out upon the ground [in grief] because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and nurslings faint in the streets of the city.

¹² They keep crying to their mothers, Where is corn and wine [food and drink]? as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away on their mothers’ bosom.

¹³ What [example of suffering in the past] is sufficient for me to remind you for your [comfort]? To what shall I liken you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? With what shall I compare you, that I may comfort you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your ruin is as measureless as the sea! Who can heal you?^(G)

¹⁴ Your prophets have predicted for you falsehood and delusion and foolish things; and they have not exposed your iniquity and guilt to avert your captivity [by causing you to repent]. But they have divined and declared to you false and deceptive prophecies, worthless and misleading.

¹⁵ All who pass by clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city which was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?

¹⁶ All your enemies have opened wide their mouths against you; they scornfully hiss and gnash their teeth. They cry, We have swallowed her up! Certainly this is the day we have looked for; we have it, we see it!

¹⁷ The Lord has done what He planned; He has carried out and finished His word which He threatened and decreed ^[c]in the days of old. He has demolished without pity; He has made the enemy rejoice over you and has exalted the might of your foes.^(H)

¹⁸ The hearts [of the inhabitants of Jerusalem] cried to the Lord. [Then to the congregation, I, Jeremiah, cried, addressing the wall as its symbol] O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give yourself no rest, let not your eyes stop [shedding tears].

¹⁹ Arise [from your bed], cry out in the night, at 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 lives of your young children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.^(I)

²⁰ Behold, O Lord, and consider [carefully] to whom You have done this. Should and shall women eat the fruit of their own bodies, the children whom they have tended and swaddled with their hands? Should and shall priest and prophet be slain in the place set apart [for the worship] of the Lord?

²¹ The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets; my maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger, slaughtering them without pity.

²² You [Lord] called together, as on an appointed feast day of solemn assembly, my terrors (dangers) from every side. And there was not one in the day of God’s wrath who escaped or survived; those I have nursed and brought up, my enemy has destroyed.

3 I am [Jeremiah] the man who has seen affliction under the rod of His wrath.

² He has led me and brought me into darkness and not light.

³ Surely He has turned away from me; His hand is against me all the day.

⁴ My flesh and my skin has He worn out and made old; He has shattered my bones.

⁵ He has built up [siege mounds] against me and surrounded me with bitterness, tribulation, and anguish.

⁶ He has caused me to dwell in dark places like those long dead.

⁷ He walled me in so that I cannot get out; He has weighted down my chain.

⁸ Even when I cry and shout for help, He shuts out my prayer.

⁹ He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰ He is to me like a bear lying in wait, and like a lion [hiding] in secret places.

¹¹ He has turned me off my ways and pulled me in pieces; He has made me desolate.

¹² He has bent His bow and set me as a mark for the arrow.

¹³ He has caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my heart [the seat of my affections and desires].

¹⁴ I have become a derision to all my people, and [the subject of] their singsong all the day.

¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness; He has made me drink to excess and until drunken with wormwood [bitterness].

¹⁶ He has also broken my teeth with gravel (stones); He has covered me with ashes.

¹⁷ And You have bereaved my soul and cast it off far from peace; I have forgotten what good and happiness are.

¹⁸ And I say, Perished is my strength and my expectation from the Lord.

¹⁹ [O Lord] remember [earnestly] my affliction and my misery, my wandering and my outcast state, the wormwood and the gall.

²⁰ My soul has them continually in remembrance and is bowed down within me.

²¹ But this I recall and therefore have I hope and expectation:

²² It is because of the Lord’s mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions fail not.^(J)

²³ They are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness.^(K)

²⁴ The Lord is my portion or share, says my living being (my inner self); therefore will I hope in Him and wait expectantly for Him.^(L)

²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait hopefully and expectantly for Him, to those who seek Him [inquire of and for Him and require Him by right of necessity and on the authority of God’s word].

²⁶ It is good that one should hope in and wait quietly for the salvation (the safety and ease) of the Lord.

²⁷ It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke [of divine disciplinary dealings] in his youth.

²⁸ Let him sit alone uncomplaining and keeping silent [in hope], because [God] has laid [the yoke] upon him [for his benefit].^(M)

²⁹ Let him put his mouth in the dust [in abject recognition of his unworthiness]—there may yet be hope.^(N)

³⁰ Let him give his cheek to the One Who smites him [even through His human agents]; let him be filled [full] with [men’s] reproach [in meekness].

³¹ For the Lord will not cast off forever!^(O)

³² But though He causes grief, yet will He be moved to compassion according to the multitude of His loving-kindness and tender mercy.

³³ For He does not willingly and from His heart afflict or grieve the children of men.^(P)

³⁴ To trample and crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth,

³⁵ To turn aside and deprive a man of his rights before the face of the Most High or a superior [acting as God’s representative],

³⁶ To subvert a man in his cause—[of these things] the Lord does not approve.