How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
How hath the LORD covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
I AM the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke of his youth.
He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
For the LORD will not cast off for ever:
For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.
I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon.
Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.
The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.
Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.
Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the LORD hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
The LORD hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.
They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
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.
He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:
He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission.
O LORD, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?
All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile.
Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
Mine eyes do 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 swoon in the streets of the city.
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.
Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth.
Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.
Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.
Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
The LORD hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.
He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
To subvert a man in his cause, the LORD approveth not.
Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
Even the sea monsters 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.
For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
The LORD was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.
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.
All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.
The LORD hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the LORD hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.
Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’s anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.