Lamentations

1ALEPH

1Jerusalem, the city that was once so full of people,

is now empty and deserted.

It was once the greatest city among all the nations,

but now it is like a widow—alone and without protection.

It was once honored among the provinces like a princess,

but now her people are forced to do slave labor.

BETH

2Jerusalem’s inhabitants weep and cry bitterly all through the night;

tears run down their cheeks.

None of the nations that loved them have come to comfort them.

All their allies have turned against them;

they have all become their enemies.

GIMEL

3Enemies drove the people of Judah out to other countries,

and made them suffer greatly as slaves.

They live among foreign nations,

where they find no peace or rest.

Their enemies caught up with them;

they were trapped and could not escape.

DALETH

4No one comes to Zion anymore for the sacred festivals,

so the roads to the city are silent and empty.

The city gates stand deserted;

the priests groan in sorrow.

The young women of the city are grieving,

and the whole city is filled with bitterness.

HE

5Jerusalem’s enemies have become rulers over it;

its adversaries are doing well.

Yahweh has caused it to suffer greatly,

because of all the ways its people sinned against him.

Its children have been taken captive

and marched away before the enemy.

WAW

6All the glory and beauty that Zion once had

has left it completely.

Its leaders are like deer that are starving

because they cannot find any grass to eat.

They stumble along weakly

with the enemy chasing them.

ZAYIN

7Now as Jerusalem suffers in exile and misery,

its people remember all the good things that they had in former times.

When the enemy conquered the people,

no one came to help them.

Some enemies watched

and laughed contemptuously as others destroyed the city.

HETH

8Jerusalem’s people sinned so greatly

that the city became something everyone treated as filthy and defiling.

All those who had honored it now despise it,

because they have seen how shamefully disgraced it has become.

Now its people moan

and humbly hide.

TETH

9Everyone can see that the people in Jerusalem have made themselves impure by sinning,

but its people never thought about what would happen to them as a result.

The enemy devastated Jerusalem in a terrible way;

no one has come to comfort its people.

They cried out, “Yahweh, see how we are suffering!

The enemy has triumphed over us!”

YODH

10The enemy took possession of all its precious treasures.

Its people watched as foreign nations entered the temple—

the nations that you, Yahweh, had commanded

to stay out of your holy place.

KAPH

11All the people groan and search for food.

They have traded their precious things just to get something to eat

so that they can stay alive.

They cried out, “Yahweh, look at us!

See how people treat us contemptuously!”

LAMEDH

12Jerusalem’s people cried out to those passing by the ruined city,

“Do you not care at all about what has happened to us?

Look around you and see—

has anyone ever suffered as much as we have suffered?

Yahweh inflicted this terrible pain on us

on the day when he was fiercely angry.

MEM

13He sent fire down from above

that burned deep inside us.

He set a trap that caught our feet

and forced us to turn back.

He left us devastated and abandoned,

exhausted and miserable all day long.

NUN

14God tied our sins around our necks like a heavy yoke;

they are twisted tightly together so that we cannot remove them.

They are piled onto our necks and weigh us down,

so that we have no strength left.

The Lord handed us over

to enemies we have no power to defeat.

SAMEKH

15The Lord has despised and rejected all our warriors.

He called our enemies together at the right time

to destroy our young men.

The Lord has crushed the people of Judah

like someone treading on grapes in a winepress.

AYIN

16These are the things we weep over, weeping without stopping;

our eyes overflow with tears.

There is no one near us to comfort us

or to restore our strength.

Our children have been left with nothing,

because the enemy has overcome us.”

PE

17Zion’s people reach out their hands, pleading for help,

but no one comes to comfort them.

Yahweh ordered that all the nations surrounding Jacob would become his enemies.

Jerusalem has become something all the neighboring nations treat as defiling and avoid.

TSADHE

18Jerusalem’s people said, “Yahweh is righteous,

because we disobeyed his commands.

Listen, all you peoples of the world,

and see what great pain we are in.

Our young women and young men

have been taken away as captives.

QOPH

19We called to our allies for help,

but they completely betrayed us.

Our priests and our elders

died in the city,

while they were desperately searching for food

just to stay alive.

RESH

20Yahweh, look at how much we are suffering!

Our stomachs churn with anguish;

our hearts are completely devastated within us,

because we have deeply and truly rebelled against you.

In the streets, the sword kills people;

inside the city, people are dying like a plague.

SIN

21People have heard us groaning in misery,

but no one has come to comfort us.

All our enemies have heard about the disaster that came upon us;

they are glad about it,

because you are the one who brought it.

Bring the day of punishment that you promised,

when they will suffer as we have suffered!

TAW

22Let all the evil things they have done come to your attention,

and punish them for what they have done.

Treat them the way you treated us

for all the ways we sinned against you.

We are constantly sighing and groaning,

and we grieve greatly.”

2ALEPH

1The Lord was very angry with the people of Jerusalem,

so he brought darkness and judgment on them.

Jerusalem used to be a beautiful and glorious city,

but he humiliated it and brought it down to nothing.

When the day came for him to punish Israel,

he did not even spare his own temple.

BETH

2The Lord completely destroyed all the homes of Jacob’s descendants

and was not merciful to them.

Because he was furious,

he tore the fortresses of the people of Judah down to the ground.

He disgraced their kingdom and its rulers.

GIMEL

3Because he was extremely angry,

he took away all of Israel’s power.

He refused to protect his people

when their enemies attacked them.

He destroyed everything among Jacob’s descendants

like a raging fire that burns up everything around it.

DALETH

4He got ready to shoot his bow at us, his own people,

as though we were his enemies.

He used his power to kill everyone we loved most

among the people of Jerusalem.

He was extremely angry with us; his anger burned like a fire.

HE

5The Lord started treating us like an enemy;

he destroyed Israel.

He destroyed all of Jerusalem’s palaces

and turned its fortresses into ruins.

He caused the people of Judah

to grieve and weep even more.

WAW

6He wrecked his own temple as easily as someone tears down a garden hut;

he destroyed the place where people gathered to worship him.

Yahweh caused the people of Zion to stop celebrating their sacred festivals and Sabbath days.

Because he was so furiously angry,

he rejected both the king and the priest.

ZAYIN

7The Lord turned away from his own altar;

he abandoned his own holy place.

He let the enemies have power over the walls of Jerusalem’s palaces.

Those enemies shouted triumphantly inside Yahweh’s temple,

as if they were celebrating one of the sacred festivals.

HETH

8Yahweh planned to destroy the wall of Jerusalem.

He carefully measured it out for destruction

and then he did not stop himself from devouring it.

He made the outer wall and the inner wall fall into ruin;

together they crumbled.

TETH

9Jerusalem’s gates have sunk into the ground;

Yahweh smashed the bars that held them shut.

The enemy has taken the king and the officials away to foreign nations;

no one teaches them God’s instruction anymore.

The prophets also no longer receive any messages from Yahweh.

YODH

10The old men of Jerusalem sit on the ground and say nothing.

They have thrown dust on their heads

and put on rough sackcloth {to show how deeply they grieve}.

The young women of Jerusalem bow their faces all the way down to the ground.

KAPH

11I have cried until my eyes can produce no more tears;

my stomach is churning with anguish.

I feel as if my insides are spilling out on the ground,

because so many of my people have died.

Even children and babies are fainting

in the city streets because they have nothing to eat.

LAMEDH

12The children cry out to their mothers,

“We need food and drink!”

They collapse in the city streets like fatally wounded soldiers,

and they die slowly

in the arms of their mothers.

MEM

13People of Jerusalem,

there is nothing I can say to help you.

Nothing that has ever happened to anyone else compares to what has happened to you people who live on mount Zion;

I do not know how to comfort you.

The disaster that struck you is as vast as the sea;

no one can restore you.

NUN

14The prophets among you claimed to hear messages from Yahweh,

but what they said was false and worthless.

They did not rebuke you when you sinned

so that you could have changed your ways and avoided disaster.

Instead, the messages they told you were lies that caused you to do wrong things.

SAMEKH

15Everyone who passes by on the road

claps their hands to mock you.

They hiss with contempt and shake their heads

at Jerusalem:

“Can this really be the city that people used to say was

the perfectly beautiful city, the city that made all the earth rejoice?”

AYIN

16All your enemies open their mouths wide against you to mock you.

They hiss with contempt and grind their teeth with hatred;

they say, “We have devoured her!

This is the very day we waited for;

we have lived to see it!”

PE

17Yahweh has done what he planned to do;

he has carried out the threat

that he announced long ago.

He has torn the city down and shown no mercy;

he has let your enemies celebrate over you,

and he has made those who attack you more powerful than ever.

TSADHE

18The people of Jerusalem cried out to the Lord from deep within themselves.

People of Jerusalem,

let your tears flow like a river

all day and all night!

Do not stop weeping;

do not let your eyes rest from crying.

QOPH

19Get up and cry out during the night,

right when the night watches begin!

Tell the Lord everything that is in your heart, holding nothing back, like water pouring out.

Raise your hands and pray to him

for your children to survive,

because they are fainting from hunger

on every street corner.

RESH

20Yahweh, look at what you have done and pay attention!

Think about whom you have treated this way!

Women should never have to eat their own children,

the babies they lovingly cared for!

No one should kill priests and prophets

inside your own holy place!

SIN

21People of every age lie dead on the ground in the streets.

The enemy has killed all our youth.

On the day you were angry, you {let the enemy} kill them;

you let them slaughter them mercilessly.

TAW

22You called enemies to attack me from every direction,

as if you were summoning guests to come to a feast.

On the day Yahweh was angry,

no one escaped and no one survived.

The children I carried and raised,

my enemy has destroyed them all.

3ALEPH

1I am a man who has suffered greatly

because God punished me when he was very angry.

2He sent me into a place where I only suffer

and nothing good happens to me.

3He keeps acting against me again and again,

all day long.

BETH

4He afflicted my body

and broke my bones.

5He attacked me on every side

and caused me to suffer terribly.

6He made me feel hopeless,

like no one remembers me.

GIMEL

7He has completely trapped me

so that I cannot escape.

8Even though I beg him to help me,

he refuses to listen when I pray.

9He has blocked every way forward for me

so that I cannot make any progress in my life.

DALETH

10He waited to attack me like a bear hiding to ambush its prey,

like a lion crouching in a hidden place.

11He ruined my plans

and destroyed me;

he made me poor.

12He deliberately chose to attack me

and made me the one he would harm.

HE

13He deliberately caused me intense suffering.

14All my own people mock me

constantly with their songs.

15He has caused me to suffer

so much that I cannot bear it.

WAW

16He completely humiliated me

and degraded me.

17God took away all my peace;

I no longer remember what happiness feels like.

18So I said to myself, “I cannot endure any longer,

and I have no more reason to hope in Yahweh.”

ZAYIN

19Yahweh, remember how I have suffered and wandered;

I have suffered so very greatly.

20I keep thinking about it over and over,

and it makes me deeply depressed.

21Yet when I think about this one thing,

I find reason to hope:

HETH

22Yahweh never stops faithfully loving us,

and he never stops showing us mercy.

23Every morning he shows us mercy again;

he is always faithful to us.

24I said to myself, “Yahweh is all that I need;

so I will confidently wait for him.”

TETH

25Yahweh is good to everyone who depends on him,

to everyone who hopes that Yahweh will help him.

26It is good to wait quietly

for Yahweh to save us.

27It is good for a person

to endure suffering patiently while still young.

YODH

28A person should accept his situation quietly and not complain

when God causes him to suffer.

29He should bow down with his face to the ground,

because there may still be reason to hope.

30He should offer his cheek to the one who hits him

and accept all the insults people give him.

KAPH

31The Lord does not reject people forever.

32Even though he causes people to grieve,

he will show them mercy because he always faithfully loves them.

33He does not enjoy causing people to suffer

or making them grieve.

LAMEDH

34When people crush all the prisoners in a land under their feet,

35when they cheat someone and deny him what he deserves

right in front of the Most High God,

36when they treat someone unfairly in his legal dispute—the Lord does not approve of any of these things.

MEM

37No one can simply speak and make something happen

unless the Lord has commanded it.

38The Most High God is the one who decides

both the bad things and the good things that happen.

39No living person should complain

when God punishes him for his sins.

NUN

40Instead, we should carefully examine how we have been living,

and we should turn back to Yahweh.

41We should sincerely pray, raising our hands to God in heaven:

42“We have sinned and rebelled against you,

and you have not forgiven us.

SAMEKH

43Because you were angry, you chased after us;

you killed us without showing us any mercy.

44You made yourself unreachable

so that you did not hear any of our prayers.

45You have made the other nations treat us

as though we are nothing but garbage and filth.

AYIN

46All our enemies

have spoken hateful things against us.

47We have experienced nothing but fear and danger,

ruin and destruction.”

48Many tears flow from my eyes

because enemies have destroyed my people.

PE

49My tears pour out and will not stop;

they will not end

50until Yahweh looks down

and sees us from heaven.

51What I see makes me grieve deeply

because of what has happened to all the women of my city.

TSADHE

52My enemies relentlessly pursued me without any reason,

even though I had done nothing wrong.

53They threw me into a pit to kill me

and dropped stones on top of me.

54Water rose over my head,

and I said to myself, “I am going to die!”

QOPH

55I called out to you, Yahweh,

from the deepest part of that pit.

56You heard me;

do not ignore me when I cry out to you for help!

57You came near when I called to you

and said, “Do not be afraid!”

RESH

58Lord, you defended me;

you saved my life.

59Yahweh, you have seen how my enemies have wronged me;

make things right for me!

60You have seen how they want to take revenge on me

and all the things they have planned to do to me.

SIN

61Yahweh, you have heard them insult me

and all the things they have planned to do to me.

62Those who oppose me whisper and mutter things

about me all day long.

63Look at them! No matter what they are doing,

they make fun of me in their songs.

TAW

64Yahweh, pay them back

for what they have done!

65Make them stubborn,

and let your curse fall on them.

66Because you are angry with them, chase them and destroy them

so they no longer exist anywhere on earth.

4ALEPH

1How terrible that the people of Jerusalem, who used to be so valuable, have now become completely worthless!

The enemy has thrown out the precious young men

at every street corner.

BETH

2People once considered the young men of Zion to be extremely valuable,

but now everyone treats them as completely worthless,

like ordinary clay pots that a potter makes.

GIMEL

3Even jackals nurse their young,

but the women among my people have neglected their own children

and have stopped caring for them.

DALETH

4The babies are so thirsty

that their tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths.

The children beg for food,

but no one gives them any.

HE

5People who used to eat the finest food

now starve in the streets.

People whose parents raised them wearing expensive clothes

now search through garbage heaps for something to eat.

WAW

6God has punished my people more severely

than he punished the people of Sodom.

He destroyed Sodom in an instant,

and nobody cried for it.

ZAYIN

7Jerusalem’s most honored people used to look very pure and healthy.

They had strong, attractive bodies

and appeared very vigorous.

HETH

8But now they look so dark and thin

that no one recognizes them in the streets.

Their skin has shriveled tightly over their bones

and has dried out completely.

TETH

9Those who died quickly in battle were better off

than those who died slowly from starvation,

because the starving people wasted away gradually

since no food grew in the fields.

YODH

10Women who were normally very compassionate

cooked their own children.

They ate them as food

when the enemy destroyed Jerusalem.

KAPH

11Yahweh expressed all of his anger against Jerusalem.

He burned the city with fire

and destroyed it down to its very foundations.

LAMEDH

12No king anywhere on the earth,

and no one else in the whole world,

believed that an enemy

could ever enter the city of Jerusalem.

MEM

13But it happened because Jerusalem’s prophets sinned

and her priests did evil things.

They killed innocent people

right there in the city.

NUN

14Those prophets and priests wandered through the streets,

confused and unable to find their way.

The blood of the people they had killed made them so unclean that no one would touch even their clothes.

SAMEKH

15People shouted at them, “Go away! You are unclean!

Do not touch us!”

So those priests and prophets fled and wandered from place to place,

but even the people in other nations said, “They cannot stay here.”

AYIN

16Yahweh himself scattered them

and no longer watches over them.

People in those nations do not respect our priests

and do not show any kindness to our elders.

PE

17We kept watching and waiting for a nation to come and help us,

but no help ever came.

The nation we hoped would rescue us could not save us.

TSADHE

18Our enemies tracked us so closely

that we could not even walk through our own city squares.

The time for our destruction was near,

and our final days had come.

QOPH

19Those who chased us were extremely fast.

They pursued us over the mountains

and ambushed us in the desert.

RESH

20Our enemies captured the king whom Yahweh had chosen to lead us,

the one who kept us alive.

We had said about him,

“He will protect us even if we have to live among other nations.”

SIN

21The people of Edom who live in the land of Uz

may be happy now about what has happened to Jerusalem,

but Yahweh will punish them too.

He will cause them to suffer greatly and be completely humiliated.

TAW

22Yahweh will finish punishing the people of Jerusalem,

and he will not keep them in exile any longer.

However, he will punish the people of Edom

and expose all the evil things they have done.

A prayer for God’s mercy

51Yahweh, think about what has happened to us.

Pay attention and see how people have disgraced us.

2Our enemies have taken our property and given it to people we do not know;

they have seized our homes and given them to people who are not Israelites.

3We have no fathers to care for us;

our mothers have no husbands.

4We have to pay money to drink our own water,

and we have to buy the wood that we need.

5Our enemies chase us and never let up;

we are exhausted, but they do not let us rest.

6We surrendered to Egypt and Assyria

so that we could get enough food to survive.

7Our ancestors sinned and then they died,

but we are the ones suffering for what they did wrong.

8People who used to be slaves now rule over us,

and no one can rescue us from their power.

9We risk our lives when we go out to get food,

because violent people in the wilderness will kill us.

10Our skin burns with fever

because we are starving so badly.

11Our enemies raped women in Zion

and young women in the towns of Judah.

12Our enemies hung our leaders by their hands;

they did not respect our elders.

13They forced our young men to grind flour with millstones,

and boys staggered under heavy loads of firewood.

14Our elders no longer gather to make decisions,

and our young men no longer play music.

15We no longer feel happy;

instead of dancing, we grieve.

16We have lost the honor that we once had.

How terrible it is for us, because we have sinned!

17Because of all this, we feel sick inside;

because of these things, we cannot stop crying.

18We are sad because Mount Zion lies empty with no one living there;

foxes roam through it.

19But you, Yahweh, rule forever!

You have authority over every generation.

20It feels as though you have forgotten us completely

and abandoned us for such a long time.

21Yahweh, please bring us back to yourself so that we may return;

make our lives as good as they were before.

22Please do not completely reject us

or stay extremely angry with us forever!