Beginning
Song of Jerusalem’s Groaning
1 How lonely sits the city,
once so full of people!
She who was once great among the nations
has become like a widow.
The princess among the provinces
has become a forced laborer.
2 Bitterly she weeps in the night,
her tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers,
there is no one to comfort her.
All her friends have betrayed her.
They have become her enemies!
3 Judah is gone into exile
under affliction and great servitude.
She dwells among the nations.
She finds no resting place.
All her pursuers have overtaken her
in the midst of her distress.
4 The roads to Zion mourn
for no one comes to her moadim.
All her gates are desolate.
Her kohanim groan,
her maidens[a] grieve—
she is in bitter anguish.
5 Her foes have become her masters.
Her enemies are at ease.
For Adonai has afflicted her,
because of her many transgressions.
Her children have gone away
as captives before the adversary.
6 All her splendor has departed,
from the daughter of Zion.
Her princes are like stags
that find no pasture.
They have fled without strength
before the pursuer.
7 In the days of her affliction
and her wandering,
Jerusalem remembers all the treasures
that were hers from the days of old.
When her people fell into enemy hands,
there was no one to help her.
Her enemies saw her
and mocked at her destruction.
8 Jerusalem has greatly sinned—
therefore, she has become niddah.
All who honored her despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness.
She herself groans,
and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness was in her skirts.
She did not consider her future.
Her demise was astonishing,
there was no one to comfort her.
“Adonai, see my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed!”
10 The enemy has stretched his hand
over all her treasures.
She even saw nations
enter her sanctuary—
those You had commanded
not to enter Your congregation.
11 All her people groan,
as they seek bread.
They traded their treasures for food
to keep themselves alive.
“Look, Adonai, and see!
For I have become despised!”
12 “Is it nothing to you,
all you who pass by on the road?
Look and see!
Is any suffering like my suffering
that was brought on me,
that Adonai has inflicted
in the day of His fierce anger?
13 From on high He sent fire into my bones
and it overcame them.
He spread out a net for my feet;
He turned me back.
He made me desolate,
faint all the day long.
14 My transgressions are bound into a yoke,
woven together by His hand.
They have come upon my neck
and He has sapped my strength.
The Lord delivered me over
to those I cannot withstand.
15 The Lord has rejected
all the mighty ones in my midst.
He has summoned an assembly against me
to crush my young men.
In a winepress the Lord has trampled[b]
the virgin daughter of Judah.
16 Over these things I weep.
My eyes overflow with water.
For far from me is a comforter,
who might refresh my soul.
My children are desolate,
because the enemy has prevailed.”
17 Zion spreads out her hands—
there is no one to comfort her.
Adonai has decreed against Jacob.
Those surrounding him have become his foes;
Jerusalem has become
niddah in their eyes.
18 “Adonai is righteous,
for I have rebelled against His word.
Hear now, all peoples—
look at my suffering!
My maidens and my young men
have gone into captivity.
19 I called to my lovers—
they deceived me!
My kohanim and my elders
perished in the city
when they sought food
to keep themselves alive.
20 Look, Adonai, for I am in distress!
My stomach churns,
my heart pounds within me,
for I have been very rebellious.
Outside, the sword bereaves,
in the house it is like death.
21 They have heard me groaning.
There is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies heard of my distress,
They rejoice that You have done it.
May You bring about the day that You proclaimed,
so they may become like me!
22 Let all their evil come before You.
Deal with them as you dealt with me,
because of all my transgressions.
For my groans are many
and my heart is faint!”
Lament for Zion
2 How my Lord has clouded over
the daughter of Zion in His anger!
He hurled down the splendor of Israel
from heaven to earth.
He has not remembered His footstool
in the day of His anger.
2 My Lord has mercilessly swallowed up
all the dwellings of Jacob.
He threw down the strongholds
of the daughter of Judah in His fury.
He knocked to the ground and humiliated
the kingdom and its princes.
3 In fierce anger He has cut off
every horn of Israel.
He has withdrawn His right hand
from before the enemy.
He blazed against Jacob like raging fire,
devouring everything around.
4 He bent His bow like an enemy,
set His right hand like a foe,
and killed all those pleasant to the eye.
In the tent of the daughter of Zion
He has poured out His wrath like fire.
5 My Lord is like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel.
He swallowed up all her citadels,
destroyed her fortifications
and multiplied mourning and moaning
for the daughter of Judah.
6 Like the garden He laid waste His dwelling,
destroyed His appointed meeting place.
Adonai has caused moed and Shabbat
to be forgotten in Zion.
In the indignation of His anger
He spurned king and kohen.
7 The Lord rejected His altar,
despised His Sanctuary.
He has delivered the walls of her citadels
into the hand of the enemy.
They raised a shout in the house of Adonai
as if it were the day of a moed.
8 Adonai resolved to destroy
the wall of the daughter of Zion.
He stretched out a measuring line.
He did not withdraw His hand from destroying.
He caused rampart and wall to lament—
together they languished away.
9 Her gates sank into the ground.
Her bars He destroyed and shattered.
Her king and princes are among nations.
There is no more Torah.
Also her prophets find
no vision from Adonai.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
sit upon the ground in silence.
They threw dust on their heads
and girded themselves with sackcloth.
The maidens of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes are filled with tears.
My stomach is in torment.
My heart[c] is poured out on the ground
over the destruction of the daughter of my people—
as young children and infants
languish in the city squares.
12 They say to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
as they faint like a wounded soldier
in the city squares,
as their lives ebb away
in their mothers’ bosom.
13 How can I admonish you?
To what can I compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you, so that I might console you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your wound is as deep as the sea!
Who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen for you
false and worthless visions.
They did not expose your iniquity,
so as to restore your captivity.
Rather, they have seen for you
false and worthless oracles.
15 All who pass your way
clap their hands at you.
They hiss and shake their heads
at the daughter of Jerusalem.
“Is this the city of which they said,
‘The perfection of beauty,’
‘the joy of the whole earth’?”
16 All your enemies
opened their mouth wide against you;
they hissed and gnashed their teeth,
and say, “We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the day we have waited for;
we have lived to see it!”
17 Adonai has done what He planned;
He has fulfilled His word
that He commanded from days of old.
He has overthrown you without pity,
He enabled the enemy to gloat over you.
He has exalted the horn of your foes.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord:
O wall of the daughter of Zion,
let tears run down
like a river day and night.
Give yourself no relief,
your eyes no rest.
19 Arise! Cry out in the night
at the beginning of the watches!
Pour out your heart like water
before the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to Him
for the life of your children
who faint from hunger
at the head of every street.
20 Look, Adonai, and consider
with whom You have dealt so severely!
Should women eat their offspring,
their healthy newborn infants?
Should kohen and prophet be slain
in the Sanctuary of the Lord?
21 On the ground in the streets
lie both young and old.
My maidens and my young men
have fallen by the sword.
You slew them in the day of Your anger.
You slaughtered them without pity.
22 As on a moed day, You summon
against me terrors on every side.
On the day of the wrath of Adonai
no one escaped or survived.
Those whom I bore and raised
my enemy has destroyed.
3 I am the strong man who has seen affliction
by the rod of His wrath.
2 He has driven me and made me walk
in darkness and not light.
3 Surely, He has turned His hand against me
again and again all day long.
4 He made my flesh and my skin
waste away, broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.
6 He made me dwell in dark places
like those long dead.
7 He has walled me in so I cannot get out.
He made my chain heavy.
8 Even when I cry out and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
9 He walled in my ways with hewn stone.
He twisted my paths.
10 He is a lurking bear to me,
a lion in hiding.
11 He turned aside my paths and tore me to pieces.
He has made me desolate.
12 He bent His bow and made me
the target for His arrow.
13 He shot into my kidneys
arrows from His quiver.
14 I have become a laughing stock
to all my people,
their song all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitterness
and made me drink wormwood.
16 He broke my teeth with gravel.
He made me wallow in ashes.
17 My soul has been deprived of shalom,
I have forgotten goodness.
18 So I said, “My endurance has perished,
and my hope from Adonai.”
19 Remember my affliction
my homelessness, bitterness and gall.
20 Whenever I remember,
my soul is downcast within me.
Our Hope—His Faithfulness
21 This I recall to my heart—
therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the mercies of Adonai
we will not be consumed,
for His compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning!
Great is Your faithfulness.
24 “Adonai is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in Him.”
25 Adonai is good to those who wait for Him,
to the soul that seeks Him.
26 It is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of Adonai.
27 It is good for a man
to bear the yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone and be silent,
since He has laid it upon him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
Intercession for Justice
30 Let him offer his cheek
to the one who strikes him.[d]
Let him have his fill of disgrace.
31 For the Lord will not reject forever.
32 For though He has caused grief,
yet He will have compassion
according to His abundant mercies.
33 For He does not afflict from His heart
or grieve the sons of men.
34 To crush under His foot
all the prisoners of the land,
35 to deprive a person of justice
before the face of Elyon,
36 to defraud a person in his lawsuit—
would the Lord not see?
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.