Lamentations 1
1 How lonely sits the city [once] full of people! She has become like a widow, she who was great among the nations; the princess of the provinces has become a slave!
2 She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears [are] on her cheeks; there is not unto her one giving comfort among all her lovers; all her companions have dealt treacherously with her, they have become to her as enemies.
3 Judah has gone into exile for affliction and from an abundance of labor; she dwells among the nations; she finds no rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of distress.
4 The paths to Zion [are] mourning no one is coming to the appointed feast, [and] all her gates are desolate; her priests are groaning, her virgins are grieving, and it is bitter for her.
5 Her adversaries have become as the head, [and] her enemies prosper; for YHWH has afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And it has departed from the Daughter of Zion—all her splendor; her princes have become like deer that find no pasture, and they flee without strength before the face of the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and her wandering all her desirable [things] that were in days before. In the falling of her people into the hand of the enemy, there was no one giving help to her; the adversaries saw her; they have laughed at her destruction.
8 Jerusalem has sinned greatly; upon thus she has become as filth. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; even she herself groans and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness [is] on her skirts; she did not have in mind her end, and she went down stunningly; there was no one giving comfort to her. See, O YHWH, my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!
10 The adversary has spread his hand over all her desirable [things]; for she has seen the nations come [into] her sanctuary, those whom You commanded not to enter into the assembly of Yours.
11 All her people groan; they seek bread; they have given their desirable [things] for food, to restore the soul. See, O YHWH, and consider! For I have become lightly esteemed.
12 [Is it] nothing to you⁺, all passing by this way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain, which has been dealt to me, which YHWH has inflicted in the day of the burning of His anger.
13 From on high He has sent fire into my bones, and it prevails over them; He has spread a net for my feet, and has turned me back; He has made me desolate, all the day faint.
14 My transgressions are bound into a yoke; by His hand they were woven together; they came up upon my neck; He has made fail my strength; the Lord has delivered me into hands; I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord has rejected all my mighty [men] in my midst; He has summoned an army against me to crush my young men [as] in a winepress; the Lord has trodden on the virgin daughter of Judah!
16 For these I am weeping; My eye, my eye is overflowing [with] water, because one comforting is far from me, the restorer of my soul; my children have become desolate because the enemy has prevailed.
17 Zion spreads out with her hands, there is no one giving comfort to her; YHWH has commanded concerning Jacob, [that] those around him [be] his adversaries; Jerusalem has become as an unclean [thing] among them.
18 He [is] righteous—YHWH, for His mouth I have rebelled against. Hear now, all peoples, and see my pain! My maidens and my young men have gone into captivity.
19 I called out to my lovers, they deceived me; my priests and my elders died off in the city while they sought food for themselves and to restore their soul.
20 See, O YHWH, that distress [is] unto me! My bowels are troubled, My heart is overturned within me because I have surely rebelled. From outside the sword bereaves; in the house [it is] like death.
21 They have heard that I have sighed; there is no one giving comfort to me; all my enemies have heard my trouble; they are glad that You have done [it]! May You bring the day You called [for], and let them become like me.
22 Let all their evil come before Your eyes, and deal with them as You have dealt with me, because of all my transgressions; for many [are] my groans, and my heart [is] faint.