Lamentações 1

¹ How alone sits the city [that was] full of people! She has become like a widow, [once] great among the nations, a noblewoman among the nations, [but now] has become a tribute-payer.

² She bitterly weeps 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 deceitfully with her; they became her enemies.

³ Judah went into captivity because of affliction, and from great slavery. She dwells among the nations; she finds no rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her between the narrows.

⁴ The roads of Zion mourn without [any] going to the appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests sigh; her virgins are afflicted, and she [is] in bitterness.

⁵ Her enemies have become as chief; her haters are at ease; for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her sins. Her children have gone, captive before the enemy.

⁶ And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty has departed. Her rulers have become like bucks: they find no pasture, and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.

⁷ [In the] days of her affliction and her wandering Jerusalem remembered all her desirable things from previous days; when her people fell into the hand of the foe; and there is no ally for her. The foes saw her; they laughed at her annihilation.

⁸ Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore she has been removed. All knowing her despise her because they saw her nakedness; yea, she sighs and turns backward.

⁹ Her uncleanness [is] in her skirts; she did not remember her end, and has gone down astoundingly. There is no comforter for her. O LORD, behold my affliction, for the enemy has magnified [himself].

¹⁰ The enemy has spread out his hand upon all her desirable things; for she has seen the nations enter her holy place, whom You commanded that they should not enter into Your congregation.

¹¹ All her people sigh; they seek bread. They have given their desirable things for food to relieve the soul. See, O LORD, and look on [me], for I have become vile.

¹² [Is it] nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which is done 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 has laid them low. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back; He has made me amazed [and] faint all the day.

¹⁴ The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they intertwine; they rise on my neck. He has made my strength to falter; the LORD has delivered me into [their] hands. I am not able to rise up.

¹⁵ The LORD has trampled all my mighty ones in my midst; He has called a gathering against me to crush my young men. The LORD has trod the virgin daughter of Judah, [as] in a winepress.

¹⁶ For these I weep; my eye, my eye runs down [with] water, because the comforter who could refresh my soul is far from me. My sons are desolated because the enemy prevails.

¹⁷ Zion spreads forth her hands; none [is] comforting to me; the LORD has commanded concerning Jacob that his enemies [should be] all around him; Jerusalem has become as an impure thing among them.

¹⁸ The LORD [is] righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. I beseech you, all peoples, hear and behold my sorrow. My virgins and my young men went into exile.

¹⁹ I called for my lovers, [but] they deceived me; my priests and my elders expired in the city while they sought food for them to bring back their life.

²⁰ Behold, O LORD, for I [am] in trouble; my inward parts ferment; my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled. On the outside the sword bereaves; in the house [it is] as death.

²¹ They hear that I sigh; [there is] none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard my evil; they are glad that You have done [it]. You will bring the day [that] You have called, and they shall be 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 sighs [are] many, and my heart [is] faint.