Lamentations 1

¹How lonely sits the city once full of people! She has become like a widow, she who was great among the nations; the princess of the provinces has become a slave!

²She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; there is not unto her one giving comfort among all her lovers; all her companions have dealt treacherously with her, they have become to her as enemies.

³Judah has gone into exile for affliction and from an abundance of labor; she dwells among the nations; she finds no rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of distress.

⁴The paths to Zion are mourning no one is coming to the appointed feast, and all her gates are desolate; her priests are groaning, her virgins are grieving, and it is bitter for her.

⁵Her adversaries have become as the head, and her enemies prosper; for YHWH has afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.

⁶And it has departed from the Daughter of Zion—all her splendor; her princes have become like deer that find no pasture, and they flee without strength before the face of the pursuer.

⁷Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and her wandering all her desirable things that were in days before. In the falling of her people into the hand of the enemy, there was no one giving help to her; the adversaries saw her; they have laughed at her destruction.

⁸Jerusalem has sinned greatly; upon thus she has become as filth. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; even she herself groans and turns away.

⁹Her uncleanness is on her skirts; she did not have in mind her end, and she went down stunningly; there was no one giving comfort to her. See, O YHWH, my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!

¹⁰The adversary has spread his hand over all her desirable things; for she has seen the nations come into her sanctuary, those whom You commanded not to enter into the assembly of Yours.

¹¹All her people groan; they seek bread; they have given their desirable things for food, to restore the soul. See, O YHWH, and consider! For I have become lightly esteemed.

¹²Is it nothing to you, all passing by this way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain, which has been dealt to me, which YHWH has inflicted in the day of the burning of His anger.

¹³From on high He has sent fire into my bones, and it prevails over them; He has spread a net for my feet, and has turned me back; He has made me desolate, all the day faint.

¹⁴My transgressions are bound into a yoke; by His hand they were woven together; they came up upon my neck; He has made fail my strength; the Lord has delivered me into hands; I am not able to rise up.

¹⁵The Lord has rejected all my mighty men in my midst; He has summoned an army against me to crush my young men as in a winepress; the Lord has trodden on the virgin daughter of Judah!

¹⁶For these I am weeping; My eye, my eye is overflowing with water, because one comforting is far from me, the restorer of my soul; my children have become desolate because the enemy has prevailed.

¹⁷Zion spreads out with her hands, there is no one giving comfort to her; YHWH has commanded concerning Jacob, that those around him be his adversaries; Jerusalem has become as an unclean thing among them.

¹⁸He is righteous—YHWH, for His mouth I have rebelled against. Hear now, all peoples, and see my pain! My maidens and my young men have gone into captivity.

¹⁹I called out to my lovers, they deceived me; my priests and my elders died off in the city while they sought food for themselves and to restore their soul.

²⁰See, O YHWH, that distress is unto me! My bowels are troubled, My heart is overturned within me because I have surely rebelled. From outside the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death.

²¹They have heard that I have sighed; there is no one giving comfort to me; all my enemies have heard my trouble; they are glad that You have done it! May You bring the day You called for, and let them become like me.

²²Let all their evil come before Your eyes, and deal with them as You have dealt with me, because of all my transgressions; for many are my groans, and my heart is faint.