Lamentations

Old Testament · 5 chapters · 154 verses.

Chapter 1

1:1How lonely sits the city that was full of people! She has become like a widow, she who was great among the nations. A princess among the provinces, she has become subject to forced labor.
1:2She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are upon her cheeks. There is none to comfort her among all her lovers; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.
1:3Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and harsh servitude. She dwells among the nations; she finds no rest. All her pursuers have overtaken her in the straits.
1:4The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the appointed feast. All her gates are desolate; her priests sigh; her virgins grieve, and she herself is bitter.
1:5Her adversaries have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. For the LORD has afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone captive before the adversary.
1:6All her splendor has departed from the daughter of Zion. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture, and they go without strength before the pursuer.
1:7In the days of her affliction and wandering, Jerusalem remembers all her precious things from days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the adversary and she had no helper, her adversaries saw her; they laughed at her downfall.
1:8Jerusalem has sinned grievously; therefore she has become unclean. All who honored her now despise her, for they have seen her nakedness. She herself sighs and turns away.
1:9Her uncleanness is in her skirts; she did not consider her end. Her fall was astonishing; there is none to comfort her. “See, O LORD, my affliction, for the enemy has exalted himself.”
1:10The adversary has spread out his hand over all her precious things; for she has seen nations enter her sanctuary, those concerning whom You commanded, “They shall not enter your assembly.”
1:11All her people sigh as they seek bread. They have given their precious things for food, to keep themselves alive. “See, O LORD, and look, for I am despised.”
1:12Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by the way? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been dealt out to me, with which the LORD afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.
1:13From on high He sent fire into my bones, and it mastered them. He spread a net for my feet; He turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day.
1:14The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they are woven together and have gone up upon my neck. He has made my strength fail; the Lord has given me into hands from which I cannot rise.
1:15The Lord has cast aside all my mighty men in my midst. He summoned an assembly against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah as in a winepress.
1:16For these things I weep; my eye, my eye, runs with water. For a comforter is far from me, one to restore my life. My children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.
1:17Zion spreads out her hands; there is none to comfort her. The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob that his neighbors should become his adversaries. Jerusalem has become unclean among them.
1:18The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. Hear now, all you peoples, and see my sorrow. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.
1:19I called for my lovers, but they betrayed me. My priests and my elders perished in the city while they sought food for themselves, to keep themselves alive.
1:20See, O LORD, for I am in distress. My inmost being churns; my heart is overturned within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.
1:21They have heard my sighing; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my calamity; they rejoice that You have done it. You have brought the day You proclaimed; then they shall become like me.
1:22Let all their evil come before You, and deal with them as You have dealt with me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

Chapter 2

2:1How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He has cast the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth, and has not remembered His footstool in the day of His anger.
2:2The Lord has swallowed up without pity all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has broken down the fortresses of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
2:3In the heat of anger He has cut off every horn of Israel. He has withdrawn His right hand before the enemy, and He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, devouring all around.
2:4He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand has stood like an adversary. He has slain all who were precious to the eye in the tent of the daughter of Zion; He has poured out His fury like fire.
2:5The Lord has become like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and moaning in the daughter of Judah.
2:6He has laid waste His shelter like a garden; He has destroyed His appointed meeting place. The LORD has caused appointed feast and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and in the indignation of His anger He has rejected king and priest.
2:7The Lord has cast off His altar; He has rejected His sanctuary. He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy; they have raised a clamor in the house of the LORD as on a day of appointed feast.
2:8The LORD determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line; He did not withdraw His hand from consuming. He caused rampart and wall to mourn; together they languish.
2:9Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; instruction is no more. Her prophets also receive no vision from the LORD.
2:10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground in silence. They have thrown dust upon their heads and put on sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
2:11My eyes fail with tears; my inmost being churns; my heart is poured out upon the ground because of the ruin of the daughter of my people, as child and nursing infant faint in the streets of the city.
2:12They say to their mothers, “Where are grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives are poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
2:13What can I say for you? What can I compare to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is as vast as the sea; who can heal you?
2:14Your prophets saw for you false and worthless visions. They did not expose your iniquity, that they might restore your fortunes, but saw for you false and misleading pronouncements.
2:15All who pass by the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city they called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
2:16All your enemies open 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.”
2:17The LORD has done what He purposed; He has fulfilled His word, which He commanded from days of old. He has broken down without pity; He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you and has lifted up the horn of your adversaries.
2:18Their heart cried out to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a stream day and night. Give yourself no rest; let not the pupil of your eye be still.
2:19Arise, cry aloud in the night, at the beginning of the watches. Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord; lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children, who faint with hunger at every street corner.
2:20See, O LORD, and look: To whom have You dealt thus? Should women eat their own offspring, the children they have tenderly cared for? Should priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
2:21Young and old lie upon 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 slaughtered without pity.
2:22You summoned my terrors on every side as on a day of appointed feast; and in the day of the anger of the LORD no one escaped or survived. Those whom I nurtured and raised, my enemy has consumed.

Chapter 3

3:1I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
3:2He has led me and driven me into darkness, and not into light.
3:3Surely He turns His hand against me again and again all day long.
3:4He has worn away my flesh and my skin; He has broken my bones.
3:5He has built siegeworks against me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
3:6He has made me dwell in dark places, like those long dead.
3:7He has walled me in so that I cannot escape; He has made my chain heavy.
3:8Even when I call and cry for help, He shuts out my prayer.
3:9He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked.
3:10He is to me a bear lying in wait, a lion in hiding.
3:11He has turned aside my ways, torn me in pieces, and made me desolate.
3:12He has bent His bow and set me as a target for the arrow.
3:13He has driven the arrows of His quiver into my inmost being.
3:14I have become a derision to all my people, their song all the day.
3:15He has filled me with bitterness; He has sated me with wormwood.
3:16He has ground my teeth with gravel and pressed me into ashes.
3:17My soul has been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what is good.
3:18Then I said, “My endurance and my hope from the LORD have perished.”
3:19Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the gall.
3:20My soul continually remembers and bows down within me.
3:21Yet this I call to mind; therefore I have hope:
3:22By the steadfast love of the LORD we are not consumed, for His compassions never end.
3:23They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
3:24“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul; “therefore I will hope in Him.”
3:25The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
3:26It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
3:27It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
3:28Let him sit alone and be silent, for He has laid it upon him.
3:29Let him put his mouth in the dust; perhaps there is hope.
3:30Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him; let him be filled with reproach.
3:31For the Lord will not cast off forever.
3:32Though He causes grief, yet He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love.
3:33For He does not afflict from His heart or grieve the children of men.
3:34To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth,
3:35to deny a man justice before the face of the Most High,
3:36to subvert a man in his cause—the Lord does not approve.
3:37Who is he who speaks, and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?
3:38Do not both adversity and good come from the mouth of the Most High?
3:39Why should a living man complain, a man because of his sins?
3:40Let us search and examine our ways, and return to the LORD.
3:41Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to God in the heavens.
3:42We have transgressed and rebelled; You have not forgiven.
3:43You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain without pity.
3:44You have covered Yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.
3:45You have made us scum and refuse among the peoples.
3:46All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
3:47Terror and pitfall have come upon us, desolation and destruction.
3:48Torrents of water run down from my eye over the destruction of the daughter of my people.
3:49My eye pours out without ceasing, without respite,
3:50until the LORD looks down and sees from the heavens.
3:51What my eye sees brings grief to my soul because of all the daughters of my city.
3:52My enemies hunted me like a bird, without cause.
3:53They cut off my life in the pit and cast a stone upon me.
3:54Waters closed over my head; I said, “I am cut off.”
3:55I called upon Your Name, O LORD, from the deepest pit.
3:56You heard my voice: “Do not hide Your ear from my plea for relief, from my cry.”
3:57You drew near in the day I called upon You; You said, “Do not fear.”
3:58You have pleaded my soul’s cause, O Lord; You have redeemed my life.
3:59You have seen, O LORD, the wrong done to me; judge my cause.
3:60You have seen all their vengeance, all their schemes against me.
3:61You have heard their reproach, O LORD, all their schemes against me,
3:62the lips of my opponents and their muttering against me all the day.
3:63Look upon their sitting down and their rising up; I am their song.
3:64Repay them, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
3:65Give them a veiled heart; let Your curse be upon them.
3:66Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.

Chapter 4

4:1How the gold has grown dim, how the finest gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are scattered at the head of every street.
4:2The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold—how they are reckoned as earthen jars, the work of a potter’s hands!
4:3Even jackals draw out the breast and nurse their young. The daughter of my people has become cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness.
4:4The tongue of the nursing infant clings to his palate from thirst. Children ask for bread, but no one breaks it for them.
4:5Those who ate delicacies lie desolate in the streets; those brought up in scarlet embrace ash heaps.
4:6The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, without a hand being laid upon her.
4:7Her Nazirites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were ruddier than rubies, their form like sapphire.
4:8Their appearance is darker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones; it has withered and become like wood.
4:9Better are those slain by the sword than those slain by famine, who waste away, pierced through for lack of the produce of the field.
4:10The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
4:11The LORD has spent His wrath; He has poured out His fierce anger. He kindled a fire in Zion, and it consumed her foundations.
4:12The kings of the earth did not believe, nor did any of the inhabitants of the world, that adversary and enemy would enter the gates of Jerusalem.
4:13This was because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.
4:14They wandered blind in the streets, defiled with blood, so that no one could touch their garments.
4:15“Turn away! Unclean!” people cried to them. “Turn away, turn away; do not touch!” When they fled and wandered, people said among the nations, “They shall sojourn here no longer.”
4:16The presence of the LORD has scattered them; He will regard them no more. They showed no respect for the priests and no favor to the elders.
4:17Our eyes still fail as we watch in vain for help; from our watchtower we watched for a nation that could not save.
4:18They hunted our steps so that we could not walk in our streets. Our end drew near; our days were fulfilled, for our end had come.
4:19Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; they pursued us hotly upon the mountains and lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
4:20The breath of our nostrils—the Anointed One of the LORD—was captured in their pits, of whom we said, “Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.”
4:21Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz. The cup shall pass to you also; you shall become drunk and expose yourself.
4:22Your punishment is completed, O daughter of Zion; He will exile you no more. He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will uncover your sins.

Chapter 5

5:1Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look and see our reproach.
5:2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.
5:3We have become orphans, without a father; our mothers are like widows.
5:4We drink our water for money; our wood comes at a price.
5:5Our pursuers are upon our necks; we are weary, and there is no rest for us.
5:6We have given our hand to Egypt and to Assyria, to be satisfied with bread.
5:7Our fathers sinned, and they are no more; we bear their iniquities.
5:8Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.
5:9At the risk of our lives we bring in our bread, because of the sword in the wilderness.
5:10Our skin is hot like an oven because of the burning heat of famine.
5:11They violated women in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.
5:12Princes were hanged by their hands; the faces of the elders were not honored.
5:13Young men carried millstones, and boys stumbled under loads of wood.
5:14The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.
5:15The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has turned to mourning.
5:16The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!
5:17Because of this our heart is sick; because of these things our eyes have grown dim:
5:18because Mount Zion lies desolate, and jackals roam upon it.
5:19You, O LORD, remain forever; Your throne endures from generation to generation.
5:20Why do You forget us forever? Why do You forsake us for so many days?
5:21Turn us back to You, O LORD, and we shall return; renew our days as of old.
5:22Or have You utterly rejected us and become exceedingly angry with us?