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Lamentations 1
1How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how has she become as a widow! she
who was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, how has she become
tributary! 2She weeps sore in the night and her tears are on her cheeks. She has no one to comfort
her among all her lovers. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her
enemies. 3Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude. She dwells among the heathen, she finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4The ways of Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn feasts. All her gates are desolate,
her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted and she is in bitterness. 5Her adversaries are the rulers,
her enemies prosper, for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her
children have gone into captivity before the enemy. 6And all her beauty has departed from the
daughter of Zion. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture and they have gone
without strength before their pursuer. 7Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of
her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the
hand of the enemy and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her and mocked at her sabbaths.
8Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore she is removed, all that had honored her despise her,
because they have seen her nakedness, yes, she sighs and turns backward. 9Her filthiness is in
her skirts, she does not remember her last end, therefore she came down wonderfully, she had no
comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction for the enemy has magnified himself. 10The adversary
has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things for she has seen that the heathen entered into
her sanctuary, whom you commanded that they should not enter into your congregation. 11All
her people sigh, they seek bread, they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the
soul, see, O LORD and consider, for I have become vile.
12Is it nothing to all you who pass by? behold and see if there is any sorrow like my
sorrow, which is done to me, with which the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce
anger. 13 He has sent fire into my bones from above and it prevails against them. He has spread
a net for my feet, he has turned me back. He has made me desolate and faint all day. 14The yoke
of my transgressions is bound by his hand. They are wreathed and come up on my neck. He has
made my strength fall, the Lord has delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to
rise up. 15The Lord has trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me. He has called
an assembly against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden the virgin, the daughter of
Judah, as in a winepress. 16I weep for these things, my eye, my eye runs down with water,
because the comforter who should relieve my soul is far from me. My children are desolate,
because the enemy prevailed. 17Zion spreads out her hands and there is no one to comfort her.
The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be around him.
Jerusalem is like an immoral woman among them. 18The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled
against his commandment. Hear, I pray you, all people and behold my sorrow, my virgins and
my young men have gone into captivity. 19I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests
and my elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their own souls.
20Behold, O LORD, for I am in distress. My inward parts are troubled, my heart is turned within
me, for I have grievously rebelled. The sword bereaves abroad, at home it is like death. 21They
have heard that I sigh, there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble,
they are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have called and they shall be
like me. 22Let all their wickedness come before you and do to them, as you have done to me for
all my transgressions, for my sighs are many and my heart is faint.
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Chapter 2
1How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger and
cast down the beauty of Israel from heaven to the earth and has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger! 2The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob and has not pitied.
He has thrown down the strong holds of the daughter of Judah in his anger, he has brought them down
to the ground. He has polluted the kingdom and its princes. 3He has cut off all
the horn of Israel in his fierce anger. He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy and he burned
against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around. 4He has bent his bow like an
enemy. He stood with his right hand as an adversary and killed all who were pleasant to the eye
in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion, he poured out his fury like fire. 5The Lord was as an
enemy, he has swallowed Israel up, he has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his
strong holds and has increased mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah. 6And he has
violently taken away his tabernacle as a garden. He has destroyed his places of
assembly. The LORD has caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion and has
despised the king and the priest in the indignation of his anger. 7The Lord has cast off his altar,
he has abhorred his sanctuary, he has given up the walls of her palaces into the hand of the
enemy, they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast. 8The
LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line, he
has not withdrawn his hand from destroying. Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to
lament, they languished together. 9Her gates are sunk into the ground, he has destroyed and
broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles. The law is no more, her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.
10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground and keep silence. They have cast up
dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth, the virgins of Jerusalem hang
down their heads to the ground. 11My eyes fail with tears, my inward parts are troubled, my liver
is poured on the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and
the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. 12They say to their mothers, Where is corn and
wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured
out into their mothers' bosom. 13What thing shall I take to witness for you? what thing shall I
liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to you, that I may comfort you, O
virgin daughter of Zion? for your breach is great like the sea, who can heal you? 14Thy prophets
have seen vain and foolish things for you and they have not uncovered your iniquity, to turn
away your captivity, but have seen false burdens and causes of banishment for you. 15All that
pass by clap their hands at you, they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem,
saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? 16All
your enemies have opened their mouth against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, they say, We
have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for, we have found it, we have
seen it. 17The LORD has done that which he had devised, he has fulfilled his word that he had
commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down and has not pitied and he has caused your
enemy to rejoice over you, he has set up the horn of your adversaries. 18Their heart cried to the
Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself
no rest, let not the apple of your eye cease. 19Arise, cry out in the night, in the beginning of the
watches pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him
for the life of your young children that faint for hunger in the top of every street. 20Behold, O
LORD and consider to whom you have done this. Shall the women eat their fruit and children
they have swaddled? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21The
young and the old lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the
sword, you have slain them in the day of your anger, you have killed and not pitied. 22You have
called my terrors around as in a solemn day, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger no one
escaped or remained. My enemy has consumed those that I have swaddled and brought up.
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Chapter 3
1I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his anger. 2He has led me and brought
me into darkness, but not into light. 3Surely he is turned against me, he turns his hand against
me all the day. 4He has made my flesh and my skin old, he has broken my bones. 5He has built
against me and surrounded me with gall and travail. 6He has set me in dark places, as those of
old. who are dead. 7He has hedged around me, so that I cannot get out. He has made my chain heavy.
8Also when I cry and shout, he shuts out my prayer. 9He has inclosed my ways with hewn stone,
he has made my paths crooked. 10He was to me like a bear lying in wait and as a lion in secret
places. 11He has turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate. 12He
has bent his bow and set me as a target for the arrow. 13He has caused the arrows of his quiver to
enter into my reins. 14I was a derision to all my people and their song all the day. 15He has filled
me with bitterness, he has made me drunk with wormwood. 16He has also broken my teeth with
gravel stones, he has covered me with ashes. 17And you have removed my soul far off from
peace, I have forgotten prosperity. 18And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD.
19Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. 20My soul has them still in remembrance and is humbled in me.
21This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. 22It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are
not consumed, because his compassions do not fail. 23They are new every morning. Great is your
faithfulness. 24The LORD is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. 25The LORD
is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. 26It is good that a man should both
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. 27It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. 28He sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it on him. 29He puts his
mouth in the dust, if there may be hope. 30He gives his cheek to him who is striking him.
He is filled full with reproach. 31For the Lord will not cast off for ever, 32But though he causes
grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. 33For he does not willingly afflict nor grieve the children of men. 34To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, 35To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 The Lord does not approve of subverting a man in his cause.
37Who is he who speaks and it happens, when the Lord does not command it? 38Evil
and good does not proceed out of the mouth of the most High? 39Why does a living man
complain, a man even for the punishment of his sins? 40Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the LORD. 41Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
42We have transgressed and have rebelled, you have not pardoned. 43You have covered us and persecuted us with anger, you have slain, you have not pitied. 44You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that our prayer can not pass through. 45You have made us like the off scouring
and refuse in the midst of the people. 46All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47Fear and a snare is come on us and desolation and destruction. 48My eye runs down with rivers
of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. 49My eye trickles down without any
intermission and does not stop, 50Till the LORD looks down and beholds from heaven. 51My
eye affects my heart because of all the daughters of my city. 52My enemies chased me sore, like
a bird, without cause. 53They have cut off my life in the dungeon and cast a stone on me.
54Waters flowed over my head, then I said, I am cut off.
55I called on your name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon. 56You have heard my voice. Do not hide your ear at my breathing, at my cry. 57You drew near in the day that I called on you, you said,
Fear not. 58O Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul, you have redeemed my life. 59O
LORD, you have seen my wrong, judge my cause. 60You have seen all their vengeance and all
their imaginations against me. 61You have heard their reproach, O LORD and all their
imaginations against me, 62The lips of those who rose up against me and they device against me
all the day. 63Behold their sitting down and their rising up, I am their music. 64Render to them a
recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands. 65Give them sorrow of heart, your
curse to them. 66Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.
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Chapter 4
1How has the gold become dim! how has the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary
are poured out in the top of every street. 2The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! 3Even the sea
monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones. The daughter of my people has
become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. 4The tongue of the sucking child cleaves to
the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread and no man breaks it to them.
5Those who fed delicately are desolate in the street, those who were brought up in scarlet
now embrace dunghills. 6For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater
than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment and no hands
stayed on her. 7Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more
ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire. 8Now their appearance is blacker than coal, they are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaves to their bones, it has withered, it has become
like a stick. 9Those who are slain with the sword are better than those who are slain with
hunger for these pine away, struck through for lack of the fruits of the field. 10The hands of the
pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their meat in the destruction of the
daughter of my people. 11The LORD has accomplished his fury, he has poured out his fierce
anger and has kindled a fire in Zion and it has devoured its foundations. 12The kings of the
earth and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the
enemy could have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13For the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the
just in the midst of her, 14They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted
themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments. 15They cried to them,
Depart, it is unclean, depart, depart, they said
among the heathen do not touch. When they fled away and wandered, They shall no more sojourn there.
16The anger of the LORD has divided
them, he will not regard them anymore. They did not respect the persons of the priests, they did not
favor the elders. 17As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help, in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us. 18They hunt our steps, so that we cannot go in our streets, our end is near, our days are fulfilled, for our end has come. 19Our persecutors are swifter
than the eagles of the heaven. They pursued us on the mountains, they laid wait for us in the
wilderness. 20The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, who dwell in the land of Uz, the cup also shall
pass through to you. You shall be drunk and shall make yourself naked. 22The punishment of
your iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion, he will not carry you away into
captivity anymore. He will visit your iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he will discover your sins.
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Chapter 5
1O LORD, remember what has come on us, consider and behold our reproach. 2Our
inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. 3We are orphans and fatherless, our
mothers are like widows. 4We have drunk our water for money, our wood is sold to us. 5Our
necks are under persecution, we labor and have no rest. 6We have begged
from the
Egyptians and the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. 7Our fathers have sinned and are not and we have borne their iniquities. 8Servants have ruled over us, there is no one who delivers us
out of their hand. 9We get our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness. 10Our skin is black like an oven because of the terrible famine. 11They ravished the
women in Zion and the maids in the cities of Judah. 12Princes were hanged up by their hands, the
faces of elders were not honored. 13They took the young men to grind and the children fell under
the wood. 14The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music. 15The joy of
our heart has ceased, our dance is turned into mourning. 16The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, that we have sinned!
17Our heart is faint for this, because of these things our eyes are dim. 18Because of the mountain of
Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk on it. 19You, O LORD, remain for ever, your throne from generation to generation. 20Why do you forget us for ever and forsake us so long a time? 21Turn us to you, O LORD and we shall be turned, renew our days as of old. 22But you have utterly rejected us, you are very angry against us.