(Lamentations 1:1) How alone sits the city that was full of people! She has become like a widow, who was once great among the nations, a princess among the nations, but now has come under tribute.
(Lamentations 1:2) She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers, she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt deceitfully with her; they have become her enemies.
(Lamentations 1:3) Judah went into captivity under affliction and hard labor. She dwells among the nations; she finds no rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her between the straits.
(Lamentations 1:4) The roads of Zion mourn because none go to the appointed meetings. All her gates are deserted; her priests sigh; her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
(Lamentations 1:5) Her oppressors have become the chief; her enemies are at ease; for Jehovah has afflicted her for the multitude of her sins. Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.
(Lamentations 1:6) And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty has departed. Her rulers have become like deer, who find no pasture, that flee without strength before the pursuer.
(Lamentations 1:7) In the days of her affliction and her wandering, Jerusalem remembered all her desirable things from ancient days, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy with no one to help her. The enemies saw her; they laughed at her annihilation.
(Lamentations 1:8) Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore she has become impure. All who honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness; yea, she sighs and turns backward.
(Lamentations 1:9) Her uncleanness is in her skirts; she did not remember her end, and her downfall was extraordinary. There is no comforter for her. O Jehovah, behold my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself.
(Lamentations 1:10) The enemy has spread out his hand upon all her desirable things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, whom You commanded that they should not enter into Your assembly.
(Lamentations 1:11) All her people sigh; they seek bread. They have given their desirable things for food to restore life. See, O Jehovah, and look upon me, for I have become vile.
(Lamentations 1:12) 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 Jehovah has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.
(Lamentations 1:13) 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 desolate and faint all the day.
(Lamentations 1:14) The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand, woven together, and thrust upon my neck. He has made my strength to falter; the Lord has delivered me into their hands. I am not able to rise up.
(Lamentations 1:15) 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 trodden the virgin daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
(Lamentations 1:16) 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 children are desolate because the enemy has prevailed.
(Lamentations 1:17) Zion spreads forth her hands, but no one comforts her. Jehovah has commanded concerning Jacob that his enemies should be all around him; Jerusalem has become as an impure thing among them.
(Lamentations 1:18) Jehovah 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 have gone into captivity.
(Lamentations 1:19) I called for my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and my elders died in the city while they sought food for them to restore their life.
(Lamentations 1:20) Behold, O Jehovah, for I am in distress; my stomach is upset; my heart churns within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Outside the sword bereaves; at home it is like death.
(Lamentations 1:21) They hear that I sigh; but no one comforts me. All my enemies have heard of 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.
(Lamentations 1:22) 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.
(Lamentations 2:1) How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He cast down the beauty of Israel from the heavens to the earth and remembered not His footstool in the day of His anger.
(Lamentations 2:2) The Lord has swallowed up all the dwelling places of Jacob and has not pitied. In His wrath He has thrown down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground. He has defiled the kingdom and its rulers.
(Lamentations 2:3) He has cut off all the horn of Israel in His fierce anger; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy, and He burned against Jacob like flaming fire which devours all around.
(Lamentations 2:4) He has bent His bow like an enemy; He stood with His right hand like an adversary, and killed all who were desirable to the eye in the tent of the daughter of Zion. He has poured out His fury like fire.
(Lamentations 2:5) The Lord was like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, and destroyed His strongholds. And He has increased mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.
(Lamentations 2:6) And He has done violence to His pavilion like it were a garden, and has destroyed His meeting places. Jehovah has caused the appointed meetings and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and He has despised the king and the priest in the indignation of His anger.
(Lamentations 2:7) The Lord has cast off His altar; He has abhorred His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a sound in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of the appointed meetings.
(Lamentations 2:8) Jehovah has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from devouring, and He made rampart and wall lament; they languish together.
(Lamentations 2:9) Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her rulers are among the nations. The law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from Jehovah.
(Lamentations 2:10) The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and are silent; they throw dust on their heads; they gird on sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
(Lamentations 2:11) My eyes fail with tears; my stomach is upset; my liver is poured on the ground for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the babies faint in the streets of the city.
(Lamentations 2:12) They say to their mothers, Where are grain and wine? When they faint they are like the wounded in the streets of the city, pouring out their lives into their mothers’ bosoms.
(Lamentations 2:13) What can I testify for you? To what thing shall I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what shall I equal you, so that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your break is great like the sea! Who can heal you?
(Lamentations 2:14) Your prophets have seen vain and foolish things for you, and they have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captives; but they have seen false utterances and causes of banishment for you.
(Lamentations 2:15) All who pass by clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city which is called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?
(Lamentations 2:16) All your enemies have opened their mouth against you; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we waited for. We have found it, we have seen it.
(Lamentations 2:17) Jehovah has done what He had purposed; He has fulfilled His Word which He commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down and not pitied. And He has caused your enemy to rejoice over you; He has set up the horn of your foes.
(Lamentations 2:18) Their heart cried unto the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give yourself no rest. Let not the daughter of your eye be silent.
(Lamentations 2:19) Arise, 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 children who faint from hunger at the head of every street.
(Lamentations 2:20) Behold, O Jehovah, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their offspring, children of their tender care? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
(Lamentations 2:21) Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered and not pitied.
(Lamentations 2:22) You have summoned, as in an appointed day, my terrors all around; and there was not one who escaped, or a survivor in the day of Jehovah’s anger. Those whom I have nursed and nurtured, my enemy has consumed.
(Lamentations 3:1) I, the man, have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
(Lamentations 3:2) He has led me and made me go in darkness and not in light.
(Lamentations 3:3) Surely He is turned against me; He turns His hand all the day.
(Lamentations 3:4) He has wasted my flesh and my skin; He has broken my bones.
(Lamentations 3:5) He has built against me and has encircled me with bitterness and travail.
(Lamentations 3:6) He has made me live in dark places, like the dead of old.
(Lamentations 3:7) He has fenced me in and I cannot go out; He has made my bronze chain heavy.
(Lamentations 3:8) Also when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.
(Lamentations 3:9) He walled up my ways with hewn stone; my paths are crooked.
(Lamentations 3:10) He was a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in secret places.
(Lamentations 3:11) He has turned my ways aside and torn me in pieces. He has made me desolate.
(Lamentations 3:12) He has bent His bow and set me as a target for the arrow.
(Lamentations 3:13) He has caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my inward parts.
(Lamentations 3:14) I was a laughing stock to all my people; their taunting song all the day.
(Lamentations 3:15) He has filled me with bitterness and made me drunk with wormwood.
(Lamentations 3:16) He also broke my teeth with gravel; He has covered me with ashes.
(Lamentations 3:17) And You cast off my soul from peace; I have forgotten good things.
(Lamentations 3:18) And I said, My strength and my hope from Jehovah are gone.
(Lamentations 3:19) Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.
(Lamentations 3:20) My soul calls to mind and remembers, and it depresses my mind.
(Lamentations 3:21) I recall this to my mind; therefore I hope.
(Lamentations 3:22) Through Jehovah’s kindness we are not consumed, because His compassions never fail.
(Lamentations 3:23) They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
(Lamentations 3:24) Jehovah is my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him.
(Lamentations 3:25) Jehovah is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
(Lamentations 3:26) It is good that one should hope for the salvation of Jehovah, even in silence.
(Lamentations 3:27) It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
(Lamentations 3:28) He sits alone and keeps silence because He has laid it upon him.
(Lamentations 3:29) He puts his mouth in the dust, if perhaps there may be hope.
(Lamentations 3:30) He gives his cheek to Him who strikes him; he is filled full with reproach.
(Lamentations 3:31) For the Lord will not cast off forever;
(Lamentations 3:32) for though He causes grief, yet He will have compassion according to the multitude of His kindness.
(Lamentations 3:33) For He does not wish to afflict nor grieve the sons of men;
(Lamentations 3:34) to crush all the prisoners of the earth under His feet;
(Lamentations 3:35) to turn aside the justice due a man before the face of the Most High;
(Lamentations 3:36) to pervert a man in his cause; this the Lord does not look after.
(Lamentations 3:37) Who is he who speaks and it occurs, if the Lord has not commanded it?
(Lamentations 3:38) From the mouth of the Most High does not come forth both evil and good.
(Lamentations 3:39) Why does a living man complain at the punishment for his sins?
(Lamentations 3:40) Let us search out and examine our ways, and return to Jehovah.
(Lamentations 3:41) Let us lift up our heart and hands to the Mighty God in Heaven.
(Lamentations 3:42) We have sinned and have rebelled; You have not forgiven.
(Lamentations 3:43) You have wrapped Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain; You have not spared.
(Lamentations 3:44) You have wrapped Yourself with a cloud to keep prayer from passing through.
(Lamentations 3:45) You have made us as the offscouring and garbage in the midst of the peoples.
(Lamentations 3:46) All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
(Lamentations 3:47) Fear and a pit have come upon us; ruin and destruction.
(Lamentations 3:48) Streams of water run down my eyes for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
(Lamentations 3:49) My eyes flow and do not cease, with no stopping,
(Lamentations 3:50) until Jehovah looks down from Heaven and has regard.
(Lamentations 3:51) My eye pains my soul because of all the daughters of my city.
(Lamentations 3:52) My enemies have hunted me down like a bird, without cause.
(Lamentations 3:53) They have cut off my life in the pit, and cast a stone upon me.
(Lamentations 3:54) Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off.
(Lamentations 3:55) I called on Your name, O Jehovah, out of the lowest pit.
(Lamentations 3:56) You have heard my voice; do not hide Your ear from my relief, from my cry for help.
(Lamentations 3:57) You drew near in the day that I called on You; You said, Fear not.
(Lamentations 3:58) O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul; You have redeemed my life.
(Lamentations 3:59) O Jehovah, You have seen how I am wronged; judge my case.
(Lamentations 3:60) You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.
(Lamentations 3:61) You have heard their reproach, O Jehovah, all their plots against me;
(Lamentations 3:62) the lips of those who rose up against me, and their scheming against me all the day.
(Lamentations 3:63) Behold their sitting down and their rising up; I am their taunting song.
(Lamentations 3:64) Return upon them a recompense, O Jehovah, according to the work of their hands.
(Lamentations 3:65) Give them hardness of heart; Your curse be upon them.
(Lamentations 3:66) Pursue and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of Jehovah.
(Lamentations 4:1) How the gold has become dim; the fine gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.
(Lamentations 4:2) The precious sons of Zion, weighed against refined gold, are counted as earthen vessels, the work of the hands of the potter!
(Lamentations 4:3) Even the monsters draw out the breast to suckle their young. But the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
(Lamentations 4:4) The tongue of the infant cleaves to the roof of his mouth in thirst; the young children ask for bread; there is none broken to them.
(Lamentations 4:5) Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those brought up in scarlet embrace refuse heaps.
(Lamentations 4:6) For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment, with no hands to writhe over her.
(Lamentations 4:7) Her Nazirites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were redder of body than rubies; their polishing as sapphires.
(Lamentations 4:8) Their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it is dried up; it has become like wood.
(Lamentations 4:9) Better off are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger; for they pine away, pierced through for lack of the fruits of the fields.
(Lamentations 4:10) The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
(Lamentations 4:11) Jehovah has fulfilled His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger, and has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured its foundations.
(Lamentations 4:12) The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy would have entered the gates into Jerusalem.
(Lamentations 4:13) For the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, shedding the blood of the just in her midst,
(Lamentations 4:14) they have wandered as blind men in the streets; they are defiled with blood, so that no one could touch their clothes.
(Lamentations 4:15) They cried out to them, Depart! Unclean! Depart, depart! Do not touch us! When they fled and wandered, they said among the nations, They will not continue to live there.
(Lamentations 4:16) The face of Jehovah has scattered them out; He will no longer have regard for them; they did not respect the persons of the priests, nor show favor to the elders.
(Lamentations 4:17) As for us, our eyes failed, watching in vain for our help; in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
(Lamentations 4:18) They have hunted our steps to keep us from going in our streets; our end was near, our days were fulfilled, for our end has come.
(Lamentations 4:19) Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; they pursued us on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
(Lamentations 4:20) The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah, was captured in their pits; of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.
(Lamentations 4:21) Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, who lives in the land of Uz. The cup also shall pass through unto you; you shall become drunk and stripped naked.
(Lamentations 4:22) The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; He will send you into captivity no more. He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.
(Lamentations 5:1) Remember, O Jehovah, what has come upon us; look down and behold our reproach.
(Lamentations 5:2) Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers; our houses to foreigners.
(Lamentations 5:3) We are orphans and fatherless; our mothers are as widows.
(Lamentations 5:4) We have drunk our water for money; our wood comes at a price.
(Lamentations 5:5) We are pursued on our necks; we labor and have no rest.
(Lamentations 5:6) We have given the hand to Egypt, to Assyria, to be satisfied with bread.
(Lamentations 5:7) Our fathers have sinned and are no more; but we have borne their iniquities.
(Lamentations 5:8) Servants rule over us; there is no one to deliver out of their hand.
(Lamentations 5:9) We bring in our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.
(Lamentations 5:10) Our skin is hot like an oven because of the burning heat of famine.
(Lamentations 5:11) They raped the women in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.
(Lamentations 5:12) Rulers were hung up by the hand; the presence of elders was not honored.
(Lamentations 5:13) They took the young men to grind, and the youths stumbled under loads of wood.
(Lamentations 5:14) The elders have ceased gathering at the gate, the young men from their music.
(Lamentations 5:15) The joy of our heart has ceased; our dance has turned into mourning.
(Lamentations 5:16) The crown has fallen from our head. Woe unto us, for we have sinned.
(Lamentations 5:17) Our heart is faint because of this; our eyes are dim because of these things.
(Lamentations 5:18) The mountain of Zion is laid waste; the foxes walk upon it.
(Lamentations 5:19) You, O Jehovah, remain forever; Your throne from generation to generation.
(Lamentations 5:20) Why do You forget us forever and forsake us for such a long time?
(Lamentations 5:21) Turn us back to You, O Jehovah, and we will repent; renew our days as of old,
(Lamentations 5:22) unless You have utterly rejected us. You have been very angry against us.
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