Lamentations
1:1How does the city sit solitary, that was
full of people!
She has become as a widow, who was
great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the
provinces is become tributary!
1:2She 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.
1:3Judah is gone into captivity because of
affliction, and because of great servitude;
She dwells among the nations, she
finds no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her
within the straits.
1:4The ways of Zion do mourn, because none
come to the solemn assembly;
All her gates are desolate, her
priests do sigh:
Her virgins are afflicted, and she
herself is in bitterness.
1:5Her adversaries are become the head, her
enemies prosper;
For Yahweh has afflicted her for
the multitude of her transgressions:
Her young children are gone into
captivity before the adversary.
1:6From the daughter of Zion all her majesty
is departed:
Her princes are become like harts
that find no pasture,
They are gone without strength before
the pursuer.
1:7Jerusalem remembers in the days of her
affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant
things that were from the days of old:
When her people fell into the hand
of the adversary, and none did help her,
The adversaries saw her, they did
mock at her desolations.
1:8Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore
she is become as an unclean thing;
All who honored her despise her,
because they have seen her nakedness:
Yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
1:9Her filthiness was in her skirts; she
didn't remember her latter end;
Therefore is she come down wonderfully;
she has no comforter:
See, Yahweh, my affliction; for
the enemy has magnified himself.
1:10The adversary has spread out his hand
on all her pleasant things:
For she has seen that the nations
are entered into her sanctuary,
Concerning whom you did command
that they should not enter into your assembly.
1:11All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things
for food to refresh the soul:
Look, Yahweh, and see; for I am
become abject.
1:12Is it nothing to you, all you who pass
by?
Look, and see if there be any sorrow
like my sorrow, which is brought on me,
With which Yahweh has afflicted
me in the day of his fierce anger.
1:13From on high has he 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 faint
all the day.
1:14The yoke of my transgressions is bound
by his hand;
They are knit together, they are
come up on my neck; he has made my strength
to fail:
The Lord has delivered me into their
hands, against whom I am not able to stand.
1:15The Lord has set at nothing all my mighty
men in the midst of me;
He has called a solemn assembly
against me to crush my young men:
The Lord has trodden as in a winepress
the virgin daughter of Judah.
1:16For these things I weep; my eye, my eye
runs down with water;
Because the comforter who should
refresh my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because
the enemy has prevailed.
1:17Zion spreads forth her hands; there is
none to comfort her;
Yahweh has commanded concerning
Jacob, that those who are round about him
should be his adversaries:
Jerusalem is among them as an unclean
thing.
1:18Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled
against his commandment:
Please hear all you peoples, and
see my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are
gone into captivity.
1:19I called for my lovers, but they
deceived me:
My priests and my elders gave up
the spirit in the city,
While they sought them food to refresh
their souls.
1:20See, Yahweh; for I am in distress; my
heart is troubled;
My heart is turned within me; for
I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaves, at home
there is as death.
1:21They have heard that I sigh; there is
none to comfort me;
All my enemies have heard of my
trouble; they are glad that you have done
it:
You will bring the day that you
have proclaimed, and they shall be like
me.
1:22Let all their wickedness come before
you;
Do to them, as you have done to
me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart
is faint.
2:1How has the Lord covered the daughter
of Zion with a cloud in his anger!
He has cast down from heaven to
the earth the beauty of Israel,
And hasn't remembered his footstool
in the day of his anger.
2:2The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations
of Jacob, and has not pitied:
He has thrown down in his wrath
the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has brought them down to the
ground; he has profaned the kingdom and
the princes of it.
2:3He has cut off in fierce anger all the
horn of Israel;
He has drawn back his right hand
from before the enemy:
He has burned up Jacob like a flaming
fire, which devours round about.
2:4He has bent his bow like an enemy, he
has stood with his right hand as an adversary,
Has killed all that were pleasant
to the eye:
In the tent of the daughter of Zion
he has poured out his wrath like fire.
2:5The Lord is become as an enemy, he has
swallowed up Israel;
He has swallowed up all her palaces,
he has destroyed his strongholds;
He has multiplied in the daughter
of Judah mourning and lamentation.
2:6He has violently taken away his tent,
as if it were of a garden; he has destroyed
his place of assembly:
Yahweh has caused solemn assembly
and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion,
Has despised in the indignation
of his anger the king and the priest.
2:7The 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 made a noise in the house
of Yahweh, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
2:8Yahweh 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;
He has made the rampart and wall
to lament; they languish together.
2:9Her gates are sunk into the ground; he
has destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among
the nations where the law is not;
Yes, her prophets find no vision
from Yahweh.
2:10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit
on the ground, they keep silence;
They have cast up dust on their
heads; they have girded themselves with
sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down
their heads to the ground.
2:11My eyes do fail with tears, my heart
is troubled;
My liver is poured on the earth,
because of the destruction of the daughter
of my people,
Because the young children and the
infants swoon in the streets of the city.
2:12They tell their mothers, Where is grain
and wine?
When they swoon as the wounded in
the streets of the city,
When their soul is poured out into
their mothers' bosom.
2:13What shall I testify to you? what shall
I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare to you, that
I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion?
For your breach is great like the
sea: who can heal you?
2:14Your prophets have seen for you false
and foolish visions;
They have not uncovered your iniquity,
to bring back your captivity,
But have seen for you false oracles
and causes of banishment.
2:15All that pass by clap their hands at
you;
They hiss and wag their head at
the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men called
The perfection of beauty, The joy of the
whole earth?
2:16All your enemies have opened their mouth
wide against you;
They hiss and gnash the teeth; they
say, We have swallowed her up;
Certainly this is the day that we
looked for; we have found, we have seen
it.
2:17Yahweh has done that which he purposed;
he has fulfilled his word that he commanded
in the days of old;
He has thrown down, and has not
pitied:
He has caused the enemy to rejoice
over you; he has exalted the horn of your
adversaries.
2:18Their heart cried to the Lord:
wall of the daughter of Zion, let
tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no respite; don't
let the apple of your eye cease.
2:19Arise, 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 life of your young children, that faint
for hunger at the head of every street.
2:20Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have
done thus!
Shall the women eat their fruit,
the children that are dandled in the hands?
Shall the priest and the prophet
be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
2:21The youth and the old man lie on the
ground in the streets;
My virgins and my young men are
fallen by the sword:
You have killed them in the day
of your anger; you have slaughtered, and
not pitied.
2:22You have called, as in the day of a solemn
assembly, my terrors on every side;
There was none that escaped or remained
in the day of Yahweh's anger:
Those that I have dandled and brought
up has my enemy consumed.
3:1I am the man that has seen affliction
by the rod of his wrath.
3:2He has led me and caused me to walk in
darkness, and not in light.
3:3Surely against me he turns his hand again
and again all the day.
3:4My flesh and my skin has he made old;
he has broken my bones.
3:5He has built against me, and compassed
me with gall and travail.
3:6He has made me to dwell in dark places,
as those that have been long dead.
3:7He has walled me about, that I can't go
forth; he has made my chain heavy.
3:8Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he
shuts out my prayer.
3:9He has walled up my ways with hewn stone;
he has made my paths crooked.
3:10He is to me as a bear lying in wait,
as a lion in secret places.
3:11He has turned aside my ways, and pulled
me in pieces; he has made me desolate.
3:12He has bent his bow, and set me as a
mark for the arrow.
3:13He has caused the shafts of his quiver
to enter into my reins.
3:14I am become a derision to all my people,
and their song all the day.
3:15He has filled me with bitterness, he
has sated me with wormwood.
3:16He has also broken my teeth with gravel
stones; he has covered me with ashes.
3:17You have removed my soul far off from
peace; I forgot prosperity.
3:18I said, My strength is perished, and
my expectation from Yahweh.
3:19Remember my affliction and my misery,
the wormwood and the gall.
3:20My soul still remembers them, and is
bowed down within me.
3:21This I recall to my mind; therefore have
I hope.
3:22It is of Yahweh's loving kindnesses
that we are not consumed, because his compassion
doesn't fail.
3:23They are new every morning; great is
your faithfulness.
3:24Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore
will I hope in him.
3:25Yahweh is good to those who wait for
him, to the soul that seeks him.
3:26It is good that a man should hope and
quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.
3:27It is good for a man that he bear the
yoke in his youth.
3:28Let him sit alone and keep silence, because
he has laid it on him.
3:29Let him put his mouth in the dust, if
so be there may be hope.
3:30Let him give his cheek to him who strikes
him; let him be filled full with reproach.
3:31For the Lord will not cast off forever.
3:32For though he cause grief, yet will he
have compassion according to the multitude
of his loving kindnesses.
3:33For he does not afflict willingly, nor
grieve the children of men.
3:34To crush under foot all the prisoners
of the earth,
3:35To turn aside the right of a man before
the face of the Most High,
3:36To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord
doesn't approve.
3:37Who is he who says, and it comes to pass,
when the Lord doesn't command it?
3:38Doesn't evil and good come out of the
mouth of the Most High?
3:39Why does a living man complain, a man
for the punishment of his sins?
3:40Let us search and try our ways, and turn
again to Yahweh.
3:41Let us lift up our heart with our hands
to God in the heavens.
3:42We have transgressed and have rebelled;
you have not pardoned.
3:43You have covered with anger and pursued
us; you have killed, you have not pitied.
3:44You have covered yourself with a cloud,
so that no prayer can pass through.
3:45You have made us an off-scouring and
refuse in the midst of the peoples.
3:46All our enemies have opened their mouth
wide against us.
3:47Fear and the pit are come on us, devastation
and destruction.
3:48My eye runs down with streams of water,
for the destruction of the daughter of my
people.
3:49My eye pours down, and doesn't cease,
without any intermission,
3:50Until Yahweh look down, and see from
heaven.
3:51My eye affects my soul, because of all
the daughters of my city.
3:52They have chased me sore like a bird,
those who are my enemies without cause.
3:53They have cut off my life in the dungeon,
and have cast a stone on me.
3:54Waters flowed over my head; I said, I
am cut off.
3:55I called on your name, Yahweh, out of
the lowest dungeon.
3:56You heard my voice; don't hide your ear
at my breathing, at my cry.
3:57You drew near in the day that I called
on you; you said, Don't be afraid.
3:58Lord, you have pleaded the causes of
my soul; you have redeemed my life.
3:59Yahweh, you have seen my wrong; judge
you my cause.
3:60You have seen all their vengeance and
all their devices against me.
3:61You have heard their reproach, Yahweh,
and all their devices against me,
3:62The lips of those that rose up against
me, and their device against me all the
day.
3:63See you their sitting down, and their
rising up; I am their song.
3:64You will render to them a recompense,
Yahweh, according to the work of their hands.
3:65You will give them hardness of heart,
your curse to them.
3:66You will pursue them in anger, and destroy
them from under the heavens of Yahweh.
4:1How is the gold become dim! how
is the most pure gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are
poured out at the head of every street.
4:2The precious sons of Zion, comparable
to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen
pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
4:3Even the jackals draw out the breast,
they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become
cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4:4The tongue of the sucking child cleaves
to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and
no man breaks it to them.
4:5Those who did feed delicately are desolate
in the streets:
Those who were brought up in scarlet
embrace dunghills.
4:6For the iniquity of the daughter of my
people is greater than the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment,
and no hands were laid on her.
4:7Her nobles were purer than snow, they
were whiter than milk;
They were more ruddy in body than
rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire.
4:8Their visage is blacker than a coal; they
are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaves to their bones;
it is withered, it is become like a stick.
4:9Those who are killed with the sword are
better than those who are killed with hunger;
For these pine away, stricken through,
for want of the fruits of the field.
4:10The hands of the pitiful women have boiled
their own children;
They were their food in the destruction
of the daughter of my people.
4:11Yahweh has accomplished his wrath, he
has poured out his fierce anger;
He has kindled a fire in Zion, which
has devoured the foundations of it.
4:12The kings of the earth didn't believe,
neither all the inhabitants of the world,
That the adversary and the enemy
would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.
4:13It is because of the sins of her
prophets, and the iniquities of her
priests,
That have shed the blood of the
just in the midst of her.
4:14They wander as blind men in the streets,
they are polluted with blood,
So that men can't touch their garments.
4:15Depart you, they cried to them, Unclean!
depart, depart, don't touch!
When they fled away and wandered,
men said among the nations, They shall no
more sojourn here.
4:16The anger of Yahweh has scattered them;
he will no more regard them:
They didn't respect the persons
of the priests, they didn't favor the elders.
4:17Our eyes do yet fail in looking
for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched
for a nation that could not save.
4:18They hunt our steps, so that we can't
go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled;
for our end is come.
4:19Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles
of the sky:
They chased us on the mountains,
they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
4:20The breath of our nostrils, the anointed
of Yahweh, was taken in their pits;
Of whom we said, Under his shadow
we shall live among the nations.
4:21Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom,
that dwell in the land of Uz:
The cup shall pass through to you
also; you shall be drunken, and shall make
yourself naked.
4:22The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished,
daughter of Zion; he will no more carry
you away into captivity:
He will visit your iniquity, daughter
of Edom; he will uncover your sins.
5:1Remember, Yahweh, what has come on us:
Look, and see our reproach.
5:2Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
5:3We are orphans and fatherless;
Our mothers are as widows.
5:4We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold to us.
5:5Our pursuers are on our necks:
We are weary, and have no rest.
5:6We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
To the Assyrians, to be satisfied
with bread.
5:7Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
We have borne their iniquities.
5:8Servants rule over us:
There is none to deliver us out
of their hand.
5:9We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
5:10Our skin is black like an oven,
Because of the burning heat of famine.
5:11They ravished the women in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.
5:12Princes were hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honored.
5:13The young men bare the mill;
The children stumbled under the
wood.
5:14The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their music.
5:15The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
5:16The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe to us! for we have sinned.
5:17For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim;
5:18For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate:
The foxes walk on it.
5:19You, Yahweh, abide forever;
Your throne is from generation to
generation.
5:20Why do you forget us forever,
And forsake us so long time?
5:21Turn you us to you, Yahweh, and we shall
be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
5:22But you have utterly rejected us;
You are very angry against us.
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