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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Jerusalem remembered in the days of her
affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had
in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the
enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock
at her sabbaths.
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.
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 adversary hath spread out his hand upon
all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered
into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not
enter into thy congregation.
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.
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.
From above hath he sent fire into my bones,
and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet,
he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the
day.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
I called for my lovers, but they deceived
me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while
they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
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.
They have heard that I sigh: there is none
to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are
glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast
called, and they shall be like unto me.
Let all their wickedness come before thee;
and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my
transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
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 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.
He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the
horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the
enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which
devoureth round about.
He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood
with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were
pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he
poured out his fury like fire.
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 he hath violently taken away his
tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places
of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and
sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the
indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
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.
The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of
the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not
withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart
and the wall to lament; they languished together.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish
things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to
turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and
causes of banishment.
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?
All thine enemies have opened their mouth
against thee: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
The young and the old lie on the ground in
the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed,
and not pitied.
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.
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 precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine
gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the
hands of the potter!
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.
The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to
the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and
no man breaketh it unto them.
They that did feed delicately are desolate in
the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace
dunghills.
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.
Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were
whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their
polishing was of sapphire:
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 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.
The hands of the pitiful women have sodden
their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the
daughter of my people.
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.
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,
They have wandered as blind men in the
streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men
could not touch their garments.
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.
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.
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.
They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in
our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end
is come.
Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles
of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait
for us in the wilderness.
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.
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through
unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself
naked.
The punishment of thine iniquity is
accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away
into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom;
he will discover thy sins.