Lamentations

1ALEPH

1How she sits alone,

the city that was great with people!

She has become like a widow

who was great among the nations.

The princess among the provinces

has become a forced laborer.

BETH

2She weeps bitterly in the night,

and her tears are on her cheeks.

She has no comforter

from all those who love her.

All her companions have betrayed her;

they have become enemies to her.

GIMEL

3Judah has gone into exile

from affliction and from the greatness of forced labor.

She herself has settled among the nations;

she has not found a resting place.

All her pursuers have overtaken her

between the narrow passes.

DALETH

4The roads of Zion are mourning

because no one is coming to the appointed feast.

All her gates are desolate;

her priests are groaning.

Her young women are grieving,

and it is bitter to her.

HE

5Her adversaries have become the head;

her enemies are prospering,

for Yahweh has afflicted her

over the greatness of her transgressions.

Her children have gone away

as captives before the adversary.

WAW

6And from the daughter of Zion

all her majesty has departed.

Her princes have become like deer

that have found no pasture.

And they have walked without strength

before the pursuer.

ZAYIN

7Jerusalem remembered

in the days of her affliction and of her wanderings,

all her precious things

that were from the days of old.

When her people fell into the hand of the adversary

and there was no helper for her,

the adversaries saw her;

they laughed over her collapse.

HETH

8Jerusalem has grievously sinned;

therefore she has become an abhorrence.

All who honored her have despised her,

because they have seen her nakedness.

And she herself has groaned

and turned backward.

TETH

9Her uncleanness is in her skirts;

she did not remember her end.

And she went down astonishingly;

there is no comforter for her.

“See, Yahweh, my affliction,

for the enemy has magnified himself.”

YODH

10The adversary has spread out his hand

over all her precious things,

for she has seen nations

entering her sanctuary—

those whom you commanded

should not enter your assembly.

KAPH

11All her people are groaning,

seeking bread.

They have given their precious things for food

to restore life.

“See, Yahweh, and look,

for I have become despised.”

LAMEDH

12“Is it nothing to you,

all you who pass along the way?

Look and see

if there is any pain like my pain

that has been done to me,

which Yahweh has inflicted

on the day of his burning anger.

MEM

13From on high he sent fire

into my bones, and it ruled over them.

He spread a net for my feet;

he turned me back.

He made me desolate,

faint all the day.

NUN

14The yoke of my transgressions was bound fast,

they are intertwined by his hand;

they have come up onto my neck.

He has caused my strength to stumble;

the Lord has given me into the hands

of those I am not able to rise against.

SAMEKH

15The Lord has rejected all the mighty men in my midst.

He has called an appointed time against me

to crush my young men.

The Lord has trodden the winepress

for the virgin daughter of Judah.

AYIN

16Over these things I, I am weeping;

my eye, my eye is running down with water,

for a comforter who restores my life

is far from me.

My sons are desolate

because the enemy has prevailed.”

PE

17Zion has spread out her hands;

there is no comforter for her.

Yahweh has commanded against Jacob

that his adversaries {should} be around him.

Jerusalem has become

an abhorrence among them.

TSADHE

18“Yahweh {is} righteous,

for I have rebelled against his mouth.

Hear, please, all peoples,

and see my pain.

My young women and my young men

have gone into captivity.

QOPH

19I called to those who love me;

they, they deceived me.

My priests and my elders

expired in the city,

when they were seeking food for themselves

to restore their life.

RESH

20See, Yahweh, for I am in distress;

my inward parts are churning;

my heart has been overturned within me,

for I have bitterly rebelled.

Outside the sword bereaves;

inside {it} is like death.

SIN

21They have heard that I am groaning;

there is no comforter for me.

All my enemies have heard of my calamity;

they have rejoiced, because you have done it.

You have brought the day you proclaimed,

and let them be like me.

TAW

22Let all their evil come before you,

and deal with them

as you have dealt with me

over all my transgressions,

for my groaning {is} many

and my heart {is} faint.”

The Lord has punished Jerusalem

2ALEPH

1How the Lord has covered with a cloud the daughter of Zion in his nose!

He has cast from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel,

and he did not remember the footstool of his feet on the day of his nose.

BETH

2The Lord has swallowed up;

he did not spare all the pastures of Jacob.

He has torn down in his wrath

the fortifications of the daughter of Judah;

he has brought {them} to the ground.

He has profaned the kingdom and her princes.

GIMEL

3He has cut off in the burning of nose every horn of Israel.

He has turned back his right hand from the face of the enemy,

and he burned in Jacob like a fire of flame consuming all around.

DALETH

4He has bent his bow like an enemy;

his right hand is stationed like an adversary,

and he has slain all the delights of the eye.

In the tent of the daughter of Zion,

he has poured out his anger like fire.

HE

5The Lord has become like an enemy;

he has swallowed up Israel.

He has swallowed up all her citadels;

he has destroyed his fortifications,

and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and groaning.

WAW

6And he has done violence like {to} his garden booth;

he has destroyed his appointed place.

Yahweh has caused {people} in Zion to forget appointed festival and Sabbath,

and he has despised king and priest in the indignation of his nose.

ZAYIN

7The Lord has rejected his altar;

he has abhorred his sanctuary.

He has delivered up into the hand of the enemy

the walls of her palaces.

They raised a shout in the house of Yahweh

as on the day of an appointed festival.

HETH

8Yahweh planned to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion.

He stretched out the measuring line;

he did not turn back his hand from swallowing up.

And he caused the rampart and wall to mourn;

together they have languished.

TETH

9Her gates have sunk into the ground;

he has destroyed and shattered her bars.

Her king and her princes {are} among the nations;

there is no law.

Also, her prophets do not find a vision from Yahweh.

YODH

10They sit on the ground;

the elders of the daughter of Zion are silent.

They have thrown up dust on their heads;

they have put on sackcloth.

The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.

KAPH

11My eyes have failed with tears;

my inner parts churn.

My liver is poured out to the ground

over the destruction of the daughter of my people,

when child and infant faint in the streets of the city.

LAMEDH

12To their mothers they say,

“Where is grain and wine?”

when they faint like the slain in the streets of the city,

when their life is poured out in the lap of their mothers.

MEM

13What can I testify to you?

To what can I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem?

To what can I liken you,

that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion?

For your brokenness is as great as the sea;

who can heal you?

NUN

14Your prophets have seen for you falsehood and worthlessness,

and they did not expose your iniquity to restore your fortunes.

But they have seen for you oracles of falsehood and enticement.

SAMEKH

15All those passing along the road clap {their} hands at you.

They hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem:

“Is this the city that they called ‘the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth’?”

AYIN

16All your enemies have opened their mouths against you.

They hiss and gnash {their} teeth;

they say, “We have swallowed {her} up!

Surely this is the day we waited for;

we have found it, we have seen it!”

PE

17Yahweh has done what he planned;

he has fulfilled his word that he commanded from days of old.

He has torn down and has not shown compassion,

and he has made the enemy rejoice over you;

he has lifted up the horn of your adversaries.

TSADHE

18Their heart cried out to the Lord.

O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears flow down like a river day and night!

Do not give yourself relief;

do not let the daughter of your eye rest.

QOPH

19Arise, cry out in the night,

at the beginning of the night watches!

Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.

Lift up your hands to him for the life of your children,

who are fainting with hunger at the head of every street.

RESH

20See, O Yahweh, and look!

To whom have you dealt thus?

Should women eat their fruit, children of {their} nursing?

Should priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

SIN

21Young and old lie down on the ground in the streets.

My young women and my young men have fallen by the sword.

You have slain on the day of your anger;

you have slaughtered;

you have not shown compassion.

TAW

22You have summoned, as on a day of an appointed festival, my terrors from all around,

and there was not on the day of the anger of Yahweh an escapee or a survivor.

Those whom I carried and multiplied, my enemy has consumed them.

3ALEPH

1I {am} the man seeing affliction

by the rod of his wrath.

2He drove me and made {me} walk

{in} darkness and not light.

3Surely against me he turns;

he turns his hand all the day.

BETH

4He wore out my flesh and my skin;

he shattered my bones.

5He built against me

and surrounded {me} {with} poison and hardship.

6In dark places he made me dwell,

like the dead of long ago.

GIMEL

7He walled me in, and I cannot go out;

he made my chains heavy.

8Even when I cry out and call for help,

he shuts out my prayer.

9He walled up my ways with hewn stone;

my paths he has made crooked.

DALETH

10He {is} a bear lying in ambush to me,

a lion in hiding places.

11He turned aside my ways

and tore me apart;

he made me desolate.

12He bent his bow

and set me up like a target for the arrow.

HE

13He caused to enter into my kidneys

the sons of his quiver.

14I became a laughingstock to all my people,

their mocking song all the day.

15He filled me with bitter herbs;

he saturated me {with} wormwood.

WAW

16And he made my teeth grind on gravel;

he pressed me down in the ashes.

17And my soul was deprived of peace;

I have forgotten good.

18And I said, “My endurance has perished,

and my hope from Yahweh.”

ZAYIN

19Remember my affliction and my wandering,

the wormwood and the poison.

20Remembering, it remembers,

and my soul bows down upon me.

21This I bring back to my heart;

therefore I will hope.

HETH

22The covenant faithfulness of Yahweh—for we have not perished,

for his compassions have not come to an end.

23{They} are new in the mornings;

great {is} your faithfulness.

24“Yahweh {is} my portion,” my soul said;

therefore I will hope in him.

TETH

25Yahweh {is} good to the ones waiting for him,

to the soul {that} seeks him.

26{It} is good to wait and {be} silent

for the salvation of Yahweh.

27{It} is good for a man

that he bears a yoke in his youth.

YODH

28Let him sit alone and be silent,

for he has laid {it} upon him.

29Let him put his mouth in the dust;

perhaps there is hope.

30Let him give {his} cheek to the one striking him;

let {people} fill him with reproach.

KAPH

31For the Lord will not reject forever.

32For though he causes grief,

he will have compassion according to the abundance of his covenant faithfulness.

33For he does not afflict from his heart,

or grieve the sons of man.

LAMEDH

34To crush under his feet

all the prisoners of {the} earth,

35to turn aside the justice of a man

before the face of the Most High,

36to pervert a man in his dispute—

the Lord does not see {it.}

MEM

37Who {is} this {who} spoke and it came to be?

{Did} the Lord not command {it?}

38From the mouth of the Most High

do not the evil things and the good go forth?

39Why should a living man complain,

a man about his sins?

NUN

40Let us search our ways and examine {them,}

and let us return to Yahweh.

41Let us lift up our hearts with {our} hands

to God in the heavens.

42We, we have transgressed and rebelled;

you have not forgiven.

SAMEKH

43You covered {yourself} in nose and pursued us;

you killed; you did not show pity.

44You covered yourself in a cloud,

from a prayer passing through.

45Offscouring and refuse you make us

in the midst of the peoples.

AYIN

46All our enemies

opened their mouth against us.

47Terror and the pit have come to us,

the desolation and the destruction.

48Streams of water go down {from} my eye,

over the destruction of the daughter of my people.

PE

49My eye pours out and does not cease,

without stopping,

50until he looks down

and Yahweh sees from the heavens.

51My eye brings grief to my soul

because of all the daughters of my city.

TSADHE

52Hunting, they hunted me like a bird,

my enemies without cause.

53They silenced my life in the pit

and cast a stone against me.

54Waters flowed over my head;

I said, “I am cut off.”

QOPH

55I called on your name, Yahweh,

from the pit of the depths.

56You heard my voice;

do not hide your ear to my relief, to my cry for help.

57You drew near on the day I called on you;

you said, “Do not fear.”

RESH

58Lord, you pleaded the cases of my soul;

you redeemed my life.

59You have seen, Yahweh, my wrong;

judge my case.

60You have seen all their vengeance,

all their plans against me.

SIN

61You have heard their reproach, Yahweh,

all their plans against me,

62the lips of those rising against me and their muttering

against me all the day.

63Look at their sitting and their rising;

I {am} their mocking song.

TAW

64You will return to them recompense, Yahweh,

according to the work of their hands.

65You will give them a covering of heart;

your curse {will} be on them.

66You will pursue in nose and destroy them

from under the heavens of Yahweh.

4ALEPH

1How the gold is tarnished;

{people} have changed the good fine gold.

The stones of holiness are poured out

at the head of every street.

BETH

2The precious sons of Zion,

weighed against fine gold,

how they are regarded as jars of clay,

the work of the hands of a potter!

GIMEL

3Even jackals offer the breast;

they nurse their young.

{But} the daughter of my people {has} become cruel,

like ostriches in the wilderness.

DALETH

4The tongue of the nursing infant sticks

to the roof of his mouth with thirst.

Children ask for bread;

there is no one breaking {it} for them.

HE

5The ones eating delicacies

are desolate in the streets.

The ones reared on scarlet

embrace garbage heaps.

WAW

6And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater

than the sin of Sodom,

which was overthrown as in a moment,

and hands did not tremble for her.

ZAYIN

7Her Nazirites were purer than snow;

they were whiter than milk.

Their bones were more ruddy than corals;

their form {was} sapphire.

HETH

8Their appearance is darker than soot;

they are not recognized in the streets.

Their skin has shriveled on their bones;

it has become dry as wood.

TETH

9Better were the slain of the sword

than the slain of hunger,

for they waste away,

pierced for lack of the fruits of the field.

YODH

10The hands of compassionate women

boiled their children;

they became food for them

in the breaking of the daughter of my people.

KAPH

11Yahweh brought to completion his wrath;

he poured out the burning of his nose.

And he kindled a fire in Zion,

and it consumed her foundations.

LAMEDH

12The kings of the earth did not believe,

nor any of the dwellers of the world,

that an adversary and an enemy

would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.

MEM

13Because of the sins of her prophets,

the iniquities of her priests,

the ones pouring out

the blood of the righteous in her midst.

NUN

14They wandered blind in the streets;

they were defiled with blood,

so that none were able

to touch their garments.

SAMEKH

15“Turn aside! Unclean!” they called to them.

“Turn aside! Turn aside! Do not touch!”

For they fled,

and they also wandered.

They said among the nations,

“They shall not continue to sojourn.”

AYIN

16The face of Yahweh divided them;

he will not continue to look at them.

The face of the priests they did not lift up,

and the elders they did not show grace.

PE

17Our eyes still ended {looking} for

our help—a vapor.

In our watching, we watched for

a nation {that} does not save.

TSADHE

18They hunted our steps

from walking in our open places.

Our end drew near;

our days are full,

for our end had come.

QOPH

19Our pursuers were swifter

than the eagles of the heavens.

On the mountains they chased us;

in the wilderness they lay in wait for us.

RESH

20The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh,

was captured in their pits,

of whom we said,

“In his shadow we will live among the nations.”

SIN

21Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom,

dweller in the land of Uz.

Also to you the cup will pass;

you will become drunk and will make yourself naked.

TAW

22Your iniquity is complete, daughter of Zion;

he will not continue to exile you.

He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom;

he will uncover your sins.

51Remember, Yahweh, what has happened to us;

look and see our reproach.

2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,

our houses to foreigners.

3We have become orphans,

and there is no father;

our mothers {are} like widows.

4Our water we drink for silver;

our wood comes at a price.

5We are pursued on our necks;

we are weary, and rest is not given to us.

6We have given a hand to Egypt,

{to} Assyria, to be satisfied {with} bread.

7Our fathers sinned;

they are no more, and we, we bear their iniquities.

8Servants rule over us;

there is no one tearing {us} away from their hand.

9At our lives we bring in our bread,

from the face of the sword of the wilderness.

10Our skin grows hot like an oven,

from the face of the burning heat of famine.

11They violate women in Zion,

virgins in the cities of Judah.

12Princes are hung by their hands;

the faces of elders are not honored.

13Young men carry a grinding stone,

and boys stumble under wood.

14Elders have ceased from the gate,

young men from their music.

15The joy of our heart has ceased;

our dancing has turned to mourning.

16The crown of our head has fallen.

Woe now to us, for we have sinned!

17On account of this, our heart has become sick;

on account of these things, our eyes have grown dim.

18On account of Mount Zion, which is desolate,

foxes walk on it.

19You, Yahweh, sit forever;

your throne {is} to generation and generation.

20Why do you forget us forever,

{why} do you forsake us for the length of days?

21Return us to yourself, Yahweh, and let us return;

renew our days as of old.

22For have you rejecting, rejected us?

Have you been angry against us beyond measure?