1:1 How doth the city sit solitary [that] was full of people!
 She that was great among the nations is become as a widow; the
 princess among the provinces is become tributary!
1:2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her
 cheeks; among all her lovers she hath no comforter; all her
 friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her
 enemies.
1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and
 because of great servitude; she dwelleth among the nations, she
 findeth no rest: all her pursuers have overtaken her within the
 straits.
1:4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn
 assembly: all her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her
 virgins are in grief; and as for her, she is in bitterness.
1:5 Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies prosper;
 for Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her
 transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the
 adversary.
1:6 And from the daughter of Zion all her splendour is departed:
 her princes are become like harts that find no pasture; and
 they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
1:7 In the days of her affliction and of her wanderings, since
 her people fell into the hand of an adversary, and none did
 help her, Jerusalem remembereth all her precious things which
 she had in the days of old: the adversaries have seen her, they
 mock at her ruin.
1:8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore is she removed
 as an impurity: all that honoured her despise her because they
 have seen her nakedness; and she sigheth, and turneth backward.
1:9 Her impurity was in her skirts, she remembered not her
 latter end; and she came down wonderfully: she hath no
 comforter. Jehovah, behold my affliction; for the enemy hath
 magnified himself.
1:10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her
 precious things; for she hath seen the nations enter into her
 sanctuary, concerning whom thou didst command that they should
 not enter into thy congregation.
1:11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their
 precious things for food to revive [their] soul. See, Jehovah,
 and consider, for I am become vile.
1:12 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, whom Jehovah hath afflicted in the day of his fierce anger.
1:13 From on high 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.
1:14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they
 are wreathed, they are come up upon my neck; he hath made my
 strength to fail; the Lord hath delivered me into hands out of
 which I am not able to rise up.
1:15 The Lord hath cast down 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 as a winepress the virgin daughter
 of Judah.
1:16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down
 with water: for the comforter that should revive my soul is far
 from me; my children are desolate, for the enemy hath
 prevailed.
1:17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort
 her; Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, [that] his
 adversaries [should be] round about him; Jerusalem is as an
 impurity among them.
1:18 Jehovah is righteous; for I have rebelled against his
 commandment. Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and behold my
 sorrow. My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
1:19 I called for my lovers, they have deceived me; my priests
 and mine elders have expired in the city, while they sought
 them food to revive their soul.
1:20 See, Jehovah, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled;
 my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled:
 without, the sword hath bereaved [me], within, it is as death.
1:21 They have heard that I sigh: I have no comforter: all mine
 enemies have heard of my calamity; they are glad that thou hast
 done it. Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and
 they shall be like unto me.
1:22 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.
2:1 How hath the Lord in his anger covered the daughter of Zion
 with a cloud! He hath cast down from the heavens unto the earth
 the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the
 day of his anger.
2:2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob, and
 hath not spared; he hath thrown down in his wrath the
 strongholds of the daughter of Judah: he hath brought [them]
 down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the
 princes thereof.
2:3 He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he
 hath withdrawn his right hand from before the enemy; and he
 burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, devouring round about.
2:4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy; he stood with his right
 hand as an adversary, and hath slain all that was pleasant to
 the eye: in the tent of the daughter of Zion, he hath poured
 out his fury like fire.
2:5 The Lord is become as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel;
 he hath swallowed up all her palaces; he hath destroyed his
 strongholds, and hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah
 mourning and lamentation.
2:6 And he hath violently cast down his enclosure as a garden;
 he hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused
 set feast and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and hath
 despised in the indignation of his anger king and priest.
2:7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath rejected 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
 Jehovah, as on the day of a set feast.
2:8 Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of
 Zion: he hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his
 hand from destroying; and he hath made the rampart and the wall
 to lament: they languish together.
2:9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and
 broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the
 nations: the law is no [more]; her prophets also find no vision
 from Jehovah.
2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground,
 they keep silence; they have cast dust upon their heads, they
 have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem
 hang down their head to the ground.
2:11 Mine eyes are consumed with tears, my bowels are troubled;
 my liver is poured upon the earth, because of the ruin of the
 daughter of my people; because infant and suckling swoon in the
 streets of the city.
2:12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when
 they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city; when they
 pour out their soul into their mothers' bosom.
2:13 What shall I take to witness for thee? what shall I liken
 unto thee, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee,
 that I may comfort thee, virgin daughter of Zion? For thy ruin
 is great as the sea: who will heal thee?
2:14 Thy prophets have seen vanity and folly for thee; and they
 have not revealed thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
 but have seen for thee burdens of falsehood and causes of
 expulsion.
2:15 All that pass by clap [their] hands at thee; they hiss and
 shake their head at the daughter of Jerusalem: Is this the city
 which they called, The perfection of beauty, The joy of the
 whole earth?
2:16 All thine enemies open their mouth against thee, they hiss
 and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed [her] up; this
 is forsooth the day that we looked for: we have found, we have
 seen [it].
2:17 Jehovah hath done what he had devised; he hath fulfilled
 his word which he had commanded from the days of old: he hath
 thrown down, and hath not spared, and he hath caused the enemy
 to rejoice over thee; he hath set up the horn of thine
 adversaries.
2:18 Their heart cried unto the Lord. O wall of the daughter of
 Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night: give
 thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye rest.
2:19 Arise, cry out in the night, in the beginning of the
 watches; pour out thy heart like water before the face of the
 Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young
 children, who faint from hunger at the top of all the streets.
2:20 See, Jehovah, and consider to whom thou hast done this!
 Shall the women eat their fruit, the infants that they nursed?
 Shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
2:21 The child and the old man 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, thou
 hast not spared.
2:22 Thou hast called up, as on the day of a set feast, my
 terrors on every side; and in the day of Jehovah's anger there
 was none that escaped or remained: those that I have nursed and
 brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
3:1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his
 wrath.
3:2 Me hath he led, and brought into darkness, and not into
 light.
3:3 Surely against me hath he turned again and again his hand
 all the day.
3:4 My flesh and my skin hath he wasted away, he hath broken my
 bones.
3:5 He hath built against me, and encompassed [me] with gall and
 toil.
3:6 He hath made me to dwell in dark places as those that have
 been long dead.
3:7 He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out: he hath made
 my chain heavy.
3:8 Even when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
3:9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my
 paths crooked.
3:10 He is unto me [as] a bear lying in wait, a lion in secret
 places.
3:11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he
 hath made me desolate.
3:12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
3:13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my
 reins.
3:14 I am become a derision to all my people; their song all the
 day.
3:15 He hath sated me with bitterness, he hath made me drunk
 with wormwood.
3:16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath
 covered me with ashes.
3:17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I have
 forgotten prosperity.
3:18 And I said, My strength is perished, and my hope in
 Jehovah.
3:19 Remember thou mine affliction and my wandering, the
 wormwood and the gall.
3:20 My soul hath [them] constantly in remembrance, and is
 humbled in me.
3:21 -- This I recall to heart, therefore have I hope.
3:22 It is of Jehovah's loving-kindness we are not consumed,
 because his compassions fail not;
3:23 they are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
3:24 Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope
 in him.
3:25 Jehovah is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul
 [that] seeketh him.
3:26 It is good that one should both wait, and that in silence,
 for the salvation of Jehovah.
3:27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth:
3:28 He sitteth solitary and keepeth silence, because he hath
 laid it upon him;
3:29 he putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be
 hope;
3:30 he giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him; he is filled
 full with reproach.
3:31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever;
3:32 but if he have caused grief, he will have compassion
 according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses:
3:33 for he doth not willingly afflict or grieve the children of
 men.
3:34 To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
3:35 to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the
 Most High,
3:36 to wrong a man in his cause, -- will not the Lord see it?
3:37 Who is he that saith, and there cometh to pass, what the
 Lord hath not commanded?
3:38 Out of the mouth of the Most High doth not there proceed
 evil and good?
3:39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the
 punishment of his sins?
3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Jehovah.
3:41 Let us lift up our heart with [our] hands unto ùGod in the
 heavens.
3:42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not
 pardoned.
3:43 Thou hast covered thyself with anger, and pursued us; thou
 hast slain, thou hast not spared.
3:44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that prayer should
 not pass through.
3:45 Thou hast made us the offscouring and refuse in the midst
 of the peoples.
3:46 All our enemies have opened their mouth against us.
3:47 Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and ruin.
3:48 Mine eye runneth down with streams of water for the ruin of
 the daughter of my people.
3:49 Mine eye poureth down, and ceaseth not, without any
 intermission,
3:50 till Jehovah look down and behold from the heavens.
3:51 Mine eye affecteth my soul, because of all the daughters of
 my city.
3:52 They that are mine enemies without cause have chased me
 sore like a bird.
3:53 They have cut off my life in a pit, and cast a stone upon
 me.
3:54 Waters streamed over my head; I said, I am cut off.
3:55 I called upon thy name, Jehovah, out of the lowest pit.
3:56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my sighing,
 at my cry.
3:57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee; thou
 saidst, Fear not.
3:58 Lord, thou hast pleaded the cause of my soul, thou hast
 redeemed my life.
3:59 Jehovah, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
3:60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance, all their imaginations
 against me.
3:61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Jehovah, all their
 imaginations against me;
3:62 the lips of those that rise up against me and their
 meditation against me all the day.
3:63 Behold thou their sitting down and their rising up: I am
 their song.
3:64 Render unto them a recompence, O Jehovah, according to the
 work of their hands;
3:65 give them obduracy of heart, thy curse unto them;
3:66 pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the
 heavens of Jehovah.
4:1 How is the gold become dim! the most pure gold changed! the
 stones of the sanctuary poured out at the top of all the
 streets!
4:2 The sons of Zion, so precious, comparable to fine gold, how
 are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of
 the potter!
4:3 Even the jackals offer the breast, they give suck to their
 young; the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the
 ostriches in the wilderness.
4:4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his
 mouth for thirst; the young children ask bread, no man breaketh
 it unto them.
4:5 They that fed delicately are desolate in the streets; they
 that were brought up in scarlet embrace dung-hills.
4:6 And the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my
 people is greater than the reward of the sin of Sodom, which
 was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were violently laid
 upon her.
4:7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they
 were more ruddy in body than rubies, their figure was as
 sapphire.
4:8 Their visage is darker than blackness, they are not known in
 the streets; their skin cleaveth to their bones, it is
 withered, it is become like a stick.
4:9 The slain with the sword are happier than the slain with
 hunger; for these pine away, stricken through for want of the
 fruits of the field.
4:10 The hands of pitiful women have boiled their own children:
 they were their meat in the ruin of the daughter of my people.
4:11 Jehovah hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his
 fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, which hath
 consumed the foundations thereof.
4:12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the
 world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy
 should enter into the gates of Jerusalem.
4:13 [It is] for the sins of her prophets, [and] the iniquities
 of her priests, who have shed the blood of the righteous in the
 midst of her.
4:14 They wandered about blind in the streets; they were
 polluted with blood, so that men could not touch their
 garments.
4:15 They cried unto them, Depart! Unclean! Depart! depart,
 touch not! When they fled away, and wandered about, it was said
 among the nations, They shall no more sojourn [there].
4:16 The face of Jehovah hath divided them; he will no more
 regard them. They respected not the persons of the priests,
 they favoured not the aged.
4:17 Our eyes still failed for our vain help; in our watching,
 we have watched for a nation that did not save.
4:18 They hunted our steps, that we could not go in our streets:
 our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
4:19 Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens;
 they chased us hotly upon the mountains, they laid wait for us
 in the wilderness.
4:20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah, was
 taken in their pits; of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall
 live among the nations.
4:21 Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the
 land of Uz: the cup shall pass also unto thee; thou shalt be
 drunken, and make thyself naked.
4:22 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.
5:1 Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us; consider, and see
 our reproach.
5:2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to
 aliens.
5:3 We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
5:4 Our water have we to drink for money, our wood cometh unto
 us for a price.
5:5 Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, we have no
 rest.
5:6 We have given the hand to Egypt, [and] to Asshur, to be
 satisfied with bread.
5:7 Our fathers have sinned, [and] they are not; and we bear
 their iniquities.
5:8 Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their
 hand.
5:9 We have to get our bread at the risk of our lives, because
 of the sword of the wilderness.
5:10 Our skin gloweth like an oven, because of the burning heat
 of the famine.
5:11 They have ravished the women in Zion, the maids in the
 cities of Judah.
5:12 Princes were hanged up by their hand; the faces of elders
 were not honoured.
5:13 The young men have borne the mill, and the youths have
 stumbled under the wood.
5:14 The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from
 their music.
5:15 The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into
 mourning.
5:16 The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, for we have
 sinned!
5:17 For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes have
 grown dim,
5:18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: foxes
 walk over it.
5:19 Thou, Jehovah, dwellest for ever; thy throne is from
 generation to generation.
5:20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, dost thou forsake
 us so long time?
5:21 Turn thou us unto thee, Jehovah, and we shall be turned;
 renew our days as of old.
5:22 Or is it that thou hast utterly rejected us? Wouldest thou
 be exceeding wroth against us?