Chronological

Aleph

1 ¶ How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! The great one among the nations is become as a widow; the princess of provinces is become tributary.

Beth

² She weeps sore in the night, and 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 are become her enemies.

Gimel

³ Judah is gone into captivity because of the affliction and because of the greatness of the servitude; she dwells among the Gentiles; she finds no rest; all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.

Daleth

⁴ The streets of Zion mourn because there are none to come to the solemnities; all her gates are destroyed; her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

He

⁵ Her enemies have been made the head; those who hated her have been prospered; for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her rebellions; her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

Vau

⁶ And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed; her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

Zain

⁷ Jerusalem remembered the days of her affliction and of her rebellions and of all her desirable things that she had in the times of old when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and no one helped her; the enemies saw her and mocked at her days of rest.

Cheth

⁸ Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she is removed; all that honoured her despise her because they have seen her nakedness; yea, she sighs and is turned backward.

Teth

⁹ Her filthiness is in her skirts; she did not remember her latter end; therefore she came down surprisingly; she has no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself.

Jod

¹⁰ The enemy has spread out his hand upon all her precious things, and she saw the Gentiles enter into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

Caph

¹¹ All her people sought their bread with sadness; they have given all their precious things for food to maintain life; see, O LORD, and consider, for I am become vile.

Lamed

¹² ¶ Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is come unto me because the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

Mem

¹³ From upon high he has sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them; he has spread a net for my feet; he has turned me back; he has made me desolate and always with pain.

Nun

¹⁴ The yoke of my rebellions is bound in his hand; they are wreathed and come up upon my neck; he has made my strength to fall; the Lord has delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.

Samech

¹⁵ The Lord has trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me; he has called a company against me to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah as in a winepress.

Ain

¹⁶ For these things I weep; my eyes, my eyes stream with water because the comforter that gives rest unto my soul has left me; my sons are desolate because the enemy prevailed.

Pe

¹⁷ Zion spread forth her hands and has no comforter; the LORD gave a commandment against Jacob that his enemies should besiege him; Jerusalem was an abomination in the midst of them.

Tzaddi

¹⁸ The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against his mouth; hear now, all the peoples and see my sorrow; my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

Koph

¹⁹ I called unto my lovers, but they have deceived me; my priests and my elders in the city perished seeking food to maintain their lives.

Resh

²⁰ Look, O LORD; for I am in distress; my bowels are troubled; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled; abroad the sword bereaves; at home there is as death.

Schin

²¹ They have heard that I sigh; and there is no comforter for me; all my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it. Thou hast brought the day that thou hast spoken of, but they shall be like unto me.

Tau

²² Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them as thou hast done unto me for all my rebellions; for my sighs are many, and my heart is filled with pain.

Aleph

2 ¶ How has the Lord darkened the daughter of Zion in his anger! He has cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel and not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger!

Beth

² The Lord has destroyed and has not forgiven; he has destroyed in his wrath all the habitations of Jacob; he has thrown down to the ground the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he has polluted the kingdom and its princes.

Gimel

³ He has cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel; he has caused his right hand to draw back in the presence of the enemy, and he burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours round about.

Daleth

⁴ He has bent his bow like an enemy; he strengthened his right hand as an adversary and slew everything of beauty that could be seen in the tent of the daughter of Zion; he poured out his fury like fire.

He

⁵ The Lord was as an enemy, he has destroyed Israel; he has destroyed all her palaces; he has dissipated his strong holds and has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

Vau

⁶ And he has violently taken away his tabernacle as if it were of a garden; he has destroyed his congregation; the LORD has caused the solemnities and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion and has rejected in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

Zain

⁷ The Lord has cast off his altar; he has abhorred his sanctuary; he has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have shouted in the house of the LORD as in the day of a feast.

Cheth

⁸ The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; he has stretched out the line; he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they were destroyed together.

Teth

⁹ Her gates were thrown to the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars; her king and her princes are carried off among the Gentiles; there is no law; nor have her prophets found vision from the LORD.

Jod

¹⁰ ¶ The elders of the daughter of Zion sat upon the ground and are silent: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth; the daughters of Jerusalem hung their heads down to the ground.

Caph

¹¹ My eyes fail with tears; my bowels are troubled; my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people because the children and the sucklings faint in the streets of the city.

Lamed

¹² They said to their mothers, Where is the wheat and the wine? fainting as the dead in the streets of the city, pouring out their souls into their mothers’ bosom.

Mem

¹³ What witness shall I take to thee? Or unto whom shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? Unto whom shall I compare thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is as great as the sea: who shall heal thee?

Nun

¹⁴ Thy prophets have preached vanity and foolishness unto thee; and they have not uncovered thine iniquity to turn away thy captivity but have preached unto thee vain prophecies and digressions.

Samech

¹⁵ All that passed by clapped their hands over thee and whistled and wagged their heads over the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

Pe

¹⁶ All thine enemies opened their mouths regarding thee; they whistled and gnashed their teeth; they said, Swallow her up; certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found it, we have seen it.

Ain

¹⁷ The LORD has done that which he had determined; he has fulfilled his word that he had commanded from the time of old; he has destroyed and has not forgiven; and he has caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee; he has raised up the horn of thine adversaries.

¹⁸ Tsade Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion; let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

Koph

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night; in the beginning of the watches; pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord; lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

Resh

²⁰ Look, O LORD, and consider unto whom thou hast shaken thus. Shall the women eat their fruit, the little ones that they are bringing up? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Schin

²¹ The young and the old lay on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men fell by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed and hast not forgiven.

Tau

²² Thou hast called as to a day of solemnity my terrors from everywhere, so that in the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up my enemy has consumed.

Aleph

3 ¶ I am a man that sees affliction in the rod of his wrath.

Aleph

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

Aleph

³ Surely he is turned against me; he turns his hand against me all the day.

Beth

⁴ My flesh and my skin he has made old; he has broken my bones.

Beth

⁵ He has built against me and compassed me with gall and travail.

Beth

⁶ He has set me in dark places as those that are dead for ever.

Gimel

⁷ He has hedged me about that I cannot get out; he has made my chain heavy.

Gimel

⁸ Even when I cried and shouted, he shut out my prayer.

Gimel

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

Daleth

¹⁰ He was unto me as a bear lying in wait and as a lion in secret places.

Daleth

¹¹ He has made my ways crooked and pulled me in pieces; he has made me desolate.

Daleth

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

He

¹³ He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.

He

¹⁴ I was a derision to all my people and their song every day.

He

¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness, he has made me drunk with wormwood.

Vau

¹⁶ He has broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.

Vau

¹⁷ My soul removed itself far from peace; I forgot about good.

Vau

¹⁸ And I said, My strength and my hope of the LORD is perished.

Zain

¹⁹ Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

Zain

²⁰ My soul shall have them still in remembrance because it is humbled in me.

Zain

²¹ ¶ This shall go down into my heart; therefore I shall wait.

Cheth

²² It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed because his mercies never diminish.

Cheth

²³ They are new every morning; great is thy faith.

Cheth

²⁴ The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore I will wait for him.

Teth

²⁵ The LORD is good unto those that wait in him, to the soul that seeks him.

Teth

²⁶ It is good to wait quietly in the salvation of the LORD.

Teth

²⁷ It is good for the man if he bears the yoke from his youth.

Jod

²⁸ He shall sit alone and keep silence because he has borne it upon him.

Jod

²⁹ He shall put his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.

Jod

³⁰ He shall turn his cheek unto him that smites him; he shall be filled with reproach.

Caph

³¹ For the Lord will not cast off for ever:

Caph

³² But though he causes grief, yet he will also have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

Caph

³³ For he does not afflict nor grieve the sons of men from his heart.

Lamed

³⁴ To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,

Lamed

³⁵ To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,

Lamed

³⁶ To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord does not approve.