Lamentations 1:1-3:42

1This chapter is an acrostic poem, the verses of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave.

2Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

3After affliction and harsh labor, Judah has gone into exile. She dwells among the nations; she finds no resting place. All who pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

4The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed festivals. All her gateways are desolate, her priests groan, her young women grieve, and she is in bitter anguish.

5Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. The LORD has brought her grief because of her many sins. Her children have gone into exile, captive before the foe.

6All the splendor has departed from Daughter Zion. Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; in weakness they have fled before the pursuer.

7In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands, there was no one to help her. Her enemies looked at her and laughed at her destruction.

8Jerusalem has sinned greatly and so has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, for they have all seen her naked; she herself groans and turns away.

9Her filthiness clung to her skirts; she did not consider her future. Her fall was astounding; there was none to comfort her. “Look, LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed.”

10The enemy laid hands on all her treasures; she saw pagan nations enter her sanctuary— those you had forbidden to enter your assembly.

11All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. “Look, LORD, and consider, for I am despised.”

12“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the LORD brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?

13“From on high he sent fire, sent it down into my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.

14“My sins have been bound into a yoke Most Hebrew manuscripts; many Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint He kept watch over my sins ; by his hands they were woven together. They have been hung on my neck, and the Lord has sapped my strength. He has given me into the hands of those I cannot withstand.

15“The Lord has rejected all the warriors in my midst; he has summoned an army against me to Or has set a time for me / when he will crush my young men. In his winepress the Lord has trampled Virgin Daughter Judah.

16“This is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears. No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed.”

17Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed for Jacob that his neighbors become his foes; Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

18“The LORD is righteous, yet I rebelled against his command. Listen, all you peoples; look on my suffering. My young men and young women have gone into exile.

19“I called to my allies but they betrayed me. My priests and my elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.

20“See, LORD, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is only death.

21“People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my distress; they rejoice at what you have done. May you bring the day you have announced so they may become like me. 22“Let all their wickedness come before you; deal with them as you have dealt with me because of all my sins. My groans are many and my heart is faint.”

1This chapter is an acrostic poem, the verses of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion with the cloud of his anger Or How the Lord in his anger / has treated Daughter Zion with contempt ! He has hurled down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

2Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob; in his wrath he has torn down the strongholds of Daughter Judah. He has brought her kingdom and its princes down to the ground in dishonor.

3In fierce anger he has cut off every horn Or off / all the strength; or every king Horn here symbolizes strength. of Israel. He has withdrawn his right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it.

4Like an enemy he has strung his bow; his right hand is ready. Like a foe he has slain all who were pleasing to the eye; he has poured out his wrath like fire on the tent of Daughter Zion.

5The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for Daughter Judah.

6He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden; he has destroyed his place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed festivals and her Sabbaths; in his fierce anger he has spurned both king and priest.

7The Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hands of the enemy; they have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed festival.

8The LORD determined to tear down the wall around Daughter Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withhold his hand from destroying. He made ramparts and walls lament; together they wasted away.

9Her gates have sunk into the ground; their bars he has broken and destroyed. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and her prophets no longer find visions from the LORD .

10The elders of Daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have sprinkled dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.

11My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

12They say to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mothers’ arms.

13What can I say for you? With what can I compare you, Daughter Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you, Virgin Daughter Zion? Your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you?

14The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The prophecies they gave you were false and misleading.

15All who pass your way clap their hands at you; they scoff and shake their heads at Daughter Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?”

16All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it.”

17The LORD has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his word, which he decreed long ago. He has overthrown you without pity, he has let the enemy gloat over you, he has exalted the horn Horn here symbolizes strength. of your foes.

18The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. You walls of Daughter Zion, let your tears flow like a river day and night; give yourself no relief, your eyes no rest.

19Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at every street corner.

20“Look, LORD, and consider: Whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have cared for? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21“Young and old lie together in the dust of the streets; my young men and young women have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered them without pity. 22“As you summon to a feast day, so you summoned against me terrors on every side. In the day of the LORD ’s anger no one escaped or survived; those I cared for and reared my enemy has destroyed.”

1This chapter is an acrostic poem; the verses of each stanza begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the verses within each stanza begin with the same letter. I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the LORD ’s wrath.

2He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light;

3indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.

4He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones.

5He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

6He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.

7He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains.

8Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.

9He has barred my way with blocks of stone; he has made my paths crooked.

10Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding,

11he dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help.

12He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows.

13He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver.

14I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long.

15He has filled me with bitter herbs and given me gall to drink.

16He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust.

17I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.

18So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD .”

19I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.

20I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

21Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

22Because of the LORD ’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

23They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

24I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

25The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;

26it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD .

27It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young.

28Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him.

29Let him bury his face in the dust— there may yet be hope.

30Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace.

31For no one is cast off by the Lord forever.

32Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.

33For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.

34To crush underfoot all prisoners in the land,

35to deny people their rights before the Most High,

36to deprive them of justice— would not the Lord see such things?

37Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?

38Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?

39Why should the living complain when punished for their sins?

40Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD .

41Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, and say:

42“We have sinned and rebelled and you have not forgiven.