1O how has the city that was once so populous remained lonely! She has become like a widow! She that was great among the nations, a princess among the provinces, has become tributary.
2She weeps, yea, she weeps in the night, and her tears are on her cheek; she has no comforter among all her lovers; all her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.
3Judah went into exile because of affliction and great servitude; she settled among the nations, [and] found no rest; all her pursuers overtook her between the boundaries.
4The roads of Zion are mournful because no one comes to the appointed season; all her gates are desolate, her priests moan; her maidens grieve while she herself suffers bitterly.
5Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies are at ease; for the Lord has afflicted her because of the multitude of her sins; her young children went into captivity before the enemy.
6And gone is from the daughter of Zion all her splendor; her princes were like harts who did not find pasture and they departed without strength before [their] pursuer.
7Jerusalem recalls the days of her poverty and her miseries, [and] all her precious things that were from days of old; when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and there was none to help her; the enemies gazed, gloating on her desolation.
8Jerusalem sinned grievously, therefore she became a wanderer; all who honored her despised her, for they have seen her shame; moreover, she herself sighed and turned away.
9Her uncleanliness is in her skirts, she was not mindful of her end, and she fell astonishingly with none to comfort her. Behold, O Lord, my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself.
10The adversary stretched forth his hand upon all her precious things, for she saw nations enter her Sanctuary, whom You did command not to enter into Your assembly.
11All her people are sighing [as] they search for bread; they gave away their treasures for food to revive the soul; see, O Lord, and behold, how I have become worthless.
12All of you who pass along the road, let it not happen to you. Behold and see, if there is any pain like my pain, which has been dealt to me, [with] which the Lord saddened [me] on the day of His fierce anger.
13From above He has hurled fire into my bones, and it broke them; He has spread a net for my feet, He has turned me back, He has made me desolate [and] faint all day long.
14The yoke of my transgressions was marked in His hand, they have become interwoven; they have come upon my neck and caused my strength to fail; the Lord delivered me into the hands of those I could not withstand.
15The Lord has trampled all my mighty men in my midst, He summoned an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden as in a wine press the virgin daughter of Judah.
16For these things I weep; my eye, yea my eye, sheds tears, for the comforter to restore my soul is removed from me; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.
17Zion spreads out her hands [for help], but there is none to comfort her; the Lord has commanded concerning Jacob [that] his adversaries shall be round about him; Jerusalem has become an outcast among them.
18The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against His word; hear, I pray, all you peoples, and behold my pain; my maidens and my youths have gone into captivity.
19I called to my lovers, [but] they deceived me; my priests and elders perished in the city, when they sought food for themselves to revive their souls.
20Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress, my innards burn, my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled; in the street the sword bereaves, in the house it is like death.
21They have heard how I sigh, [and] there is none to comfort me, all my enemies have heard of my trouble [and] are glad that You have done it; [if only] You had brought the day that You proclaimed [upon them] and let them be like me.
22May all their wickedness come before You, and deal with them as You have dealt with me for all my transgressions, for my sighs are many and my heart is faint.
1How has the Lord in His anger brought darkness upon the daughter of Zion! He has cast down from heaven to Earth the glory of Israel, and has not remembered His footstool on the day of His anger.
2The Lord has destroyed and has had no pity on all the habitations of Jacob; in His wrath He has broken down the strongholds of Judah; He has struck [them] to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3He has cut down in fierce anger all the strength of Israel; He has withdrawn His right hand [that shielded Israel] from the enemy, and He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, consuming all around.
4He has bent His bow like an enemy, standing [with] His right hand as an adversary, and He has slain all that were pleasant to the eye; in the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury, [which is] like fire.
5The Lord has become like an enemy; He has destroyed Israel; He has destroyed all its palaces, laid in ruins its strongholds, and He increased in the daughter of Judah, pain and wailing.
6And He stripped His Tabernacle like a garden, and laid in ruins His Meeting-Place; the Lord has caused festival and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and in His fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7The Lord has rejected His altar, He has abolished His Sanctuary, He has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they raised a clamor in the House of the Lord, as on a day of a festival.
8The Lord determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He stretched out a line; He did not restrain His hand from destroying; indeed, He caused rampart and wall to mourn, [and] they languish together.
9Her gates are sunk into the ground; He has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are [exiled] among the heathens, [and] there is no more teaching; moreover, her prophets obtain no vision from the Lord.
10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence, they laid dust on their heads [and] put on sackcloth; the maidens of Jerusalem bowed their heads to the ground.
11My eyes are spent with tears, my innards burn; my heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, while infant and suckling faint in the streets of the city.
12They say to their mothers, "Where are corn and wine?" as they faint like one slain, in the streets of the city, while their soul ebbs away on their mothers' bosom.
13What shall I testify for you? What shall I compare to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is as vast as the sea-who can heal you?
14Your prophets have seen false and senseless visions for you, and they have not exposed your iniquity to straighten out your backsliding, but have prophesied for you false and misleading oracles.
15All who passed along the road clapped their hands at you, they hissed and wagged their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem; "Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the Earth?"
16All your enemies have opened their mouths wide against you; they hissed and gnashed their teeth [and] said, "We have engulfed [her]! Indeed, this is the day we longed for; we have found it; we have seen it!"
17The Lord has done what He devised, He has carried out His word, which He decreed long ago, [and] has devastated without pity; He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you, and exalted the might of your adversaries.
18Their heart cried out to the Lord: "O wall of the daughter of Zion! Let tears stream down like a torrent day and night, give yourself no respite, let the pupil of your eye not rest!
19Arise, 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 [and pray] for the lives of your infants, who faint because of hunger at the head of every street."
20See, O Lord, and behold, to whom [else] have You done thus! Will women devour their own offspring, children that are petted? Will priest and prophet be slain in the Sanctuary of the Lord?
21In the streets, on the [bare] ground lie [both] young and old, my maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword; You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered [them] without mercy.
22You have summoned my neighbors on every side, as though it were a feast day, and on the day of the Lord's anger there was none that escaped or survived; those whom I dandled and reared, my enemy exterminated.
8[But now] their appearance has become darker than charcoal, they are not recognized in the streets; their skin is shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.
15"Depart, unclean!" they called out to them, "Depart, depart, do not touch!" for they are foul, even slipping; they said, "They shall no more sojourn among the nations."
20The breath of our nostrils, the Lord's anointed, was captured in their pits, of whom we had said, "Under His protection we shall live among the nations."
22[The punishment of] your iniquity is complete, O daughter of Zion; He will no longer send you into exile; [but] your iniquity, O daughter of Edom, He shall punish-He will reveal your sins.
