Lamentations

The Deserted City

1How lonely sits the city
   that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
   she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
   has become a vassal.

²She weeps bitterly in the night,
   with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers
   she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
   they have become her enemies.

³Judah has gone into exile with suffering
   and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations,
   and finds no resting-place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
   in the midst of her distress.

⁴The roads to Zion mourn,
   for no one comes to the festivals;
all her gates are desolate,
   her priests groan;
her young girls grieve,^*
   and her lot is bitter.

⁵Her foes have become the masters,
   her enemies prosper,
because the Lord has made her suffer
   for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away,
   captives before the foe.

⁶From daughter Zion has departed
   all her majesty.
Her princes have become like stags
   that find no pasture;
they fled without strength
   before the pursuer.

⁷Jerusalem remembers,
   in the days of her affliction and wandering,
all the precious things
   that were hers in days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the foe,
   and there was no one to help her,
the foe looked on mocking
   over her downfall.

⁸Jerusalem sinned grievously,
   so she has become a mockery;
all who honoured her despise her,
   for they have seen her nakedness;
she herself groans,
   and turns her face away.

⁹Her uncleanness was in her skirts;
   she took no thought of her future;
her downfall was appalling,
   with none to comfort her.
‘O Lord, look at my affliction,
   for the enemy has triumphed!’

¹⁰Enemies have stretched out their hands
   over all her precious things;
she has even seen the nations
   invade her sanctuary,
those whom you forbade
   to enter your congregation.

¹¹All her people groan
   as they search for bread;
they trade their treasures for food
   to revive their strength.
Look, O Lord, and see
   how worthless I have become.

¹²Is it nothing to you,^* all you who pass by?
   Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
   which was brought upon me,
which the Lord inflicted
   on the day of his fierce anger.

¹³From on high he sent fire;
   it went deep into my bones;
he spread a net for my feet;
   he turned me back;
he has left me stunned,
   faint all day long.

¹⁴My transgressions were bound^* into a yoke;
   by his hand they were fastened together;
they weigh on my neck,
   sapping my strength;
the Lord handed me over
   to those whom I cannot withstand.

¹⁵The Lord has rejected
   all my warriors in the midst of me;
he proclaimed a time against me
   to crush my young men;
the Lord has trodden as in a wine press
   the virgin daughter Judah.

¹⁶For these things I weep;
   my eyes flow with tears;
for a comforter is far from me,
   one to revive my courage;
my children are desolate,
   for the enemy has prevailed.

¹⁷Zion stretches out her hands,
   but there is no one to comfort her;
the Lord has commanded against Jacob
   that his neighbours should become his foes;
Jerusalem has become
   a filthy thing among them.

¹⁸The Lord is in the right,
   for I have rebelled against his word;
but hear, all you peoples,
   and behold my suffering;
my young women and young men
   have gone into captivity.

¹⁹I called to my lovers
   but they deceived me;
my priests and elders
   perished in the city
while seeking food
   to revive their strength.

²⁰See, O Lord, how distressed I am;
   my stomach churns,
my heart is wrung within me,
   because I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword bereaves;
   in the house it is like death.

²¹They heard how I was groaning,
   with no one to comfort me.
All my enemies heard of my trouble;
   they are glad that you have done it.
Bring on the day you have announced,
   and let them be as I am.

²²Let all their evildoing come before you;
   and deal with them
as you have dealt with me
   because of all my transgressions;
for my groans are many
   and my heart is faint.

God’s Warnings Fulfilled

2How the Lord in his anger
   has humiliated^* daughter Zion!
He has thrown down from heaven to earth
   the splendour of Israel;
he has not remembered his footstool
   on the day of his anger.

²The Lord has destroyed without mercy
   all the dwellings of Jacob;
in his wrath he has broken down
   the strongholds of daughter Judah;
he has brought down to the ground in dishonour
   the kingdom and its rulers.

³He has cut down in fierce anger
   all the might of Israel;
he has withdrawn his right hand from them
   in the face of the enemy;
he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,
   consuming all around.

⁴He has bent his bow like an enemy,
   with his right hand set like a foe;
he has killed all in whom we took pride
   in the tent of daughter Zion;
he has poured out his fury like fire.

⁵The Lord has become like an enemy;
   he has destroyed Israel.
He has destroyed all its palaces,
   laid in ruins its strongholds,
and multiplied in daughter Judah
   mourning and lamentation.

⁶He has broken down his booth like a garden,
   he has destroyed his tabernacle;
the Lord has abolished in Zion
   festival and sabbath,
and in his fierce indignation has spurned
   king and priest.

⁷The Lord has scorned his altar,
   disowned his sanctuary;
he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
   the walls of her palaces;
a clamour was raised in the house of the Lord
   as on a day of festival.

⁸The Lord determined to lay in ruins
   the wall of daughter Zion;
he stretched the line;
   he did not withhold his hand from destroying;
he caused rampart and wall to lament;
   they languish together.

⁹Her gates have sunk into the ground;
   he has ruined and broken her bars;
her king and princes are among the nations;
   guidance is no more,
and her prophets obtain
   no vision from the Lord.

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

¹¹My eyes are spent with weeping;
   my stomach churns;
my bile is poured out on the ground
   because of the destruction of my people,
because infants and babes faint
   in the streets of the city.

¹²They cry to their mothers,
   ‘Where is bread and wine?’
as they faint like the wounded
   in the streets of the city,
as their life is poured out
   on their mothers’ bosom.

¹³What can I say for you, to what compare you,
   O daughter Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you,
   O virgin daughter Zion?
For vast as the sea is your ruin;
   who can heal you?

¹⁴Your prophets have seen for you
   false and deceptive visions;
they have not exposed your iniquity
   to restore your fortunes,
but have seen oracles for you
   that are false and misleading.

¹⁵All who pass along the way
   clap their hands at you;
they hiss and wag their heads
   at daughter Jerusalem;
‘Is this the city that was called
   the perfection of beauty,
   the joy of all the earth?’

¹⁶All your enemies
   open their mouths against you;
they hiss, they gnash their teeth,
   they cry: ‘We have devoured her!
Ah, this is the day we longed for;
   at last we have seen it!’

¹⁷The Lord has done what he purposed,
   he has carried out his threat;
as he ordained long ago,
   he has demolished without pity;
he has made the enemy rejoice over you,
   and exalted the might of your foes.

¹⁸Cry aloud^* to the Lord!
   O wall of daughter Zion!
Let tears stream down like a torrent
   day and night!
Give yourself no rest,
   your eyes no respite!

¹⁹Arise, cry out in the night,
   at the beginning of the watches!
Pour out your heart like water
   before the presence of the Lord!
Lift your hands to him
   for the lives of your children,
who faint for hunger
   at the head of every street.

²⁰Look, O Lord, and consider!
   To whom have you done this?
Should women eat their offspring,
   the children they have borne?
Should priest and prophet be killed
   in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹The young and the old are lying
   on the ground in the streets;
my young women and my young men
   have fallen by the sword;
on the day of your anger you have killed them,
   slaughtering without mercy.

²²You invited my enemies from all around
   as if for a day of festival;
and on the day of the anger of the Lord
   no one escaped or survived;
those whom I bore and reared
   my enemy has destroyed.

God’s Steadfast Love Endures

3I am one who has seen affliction
   under the rod of God’s ^* wrath;
²he has driven and brought me
   into darkness without any light;
³against me alone he turns his hand,
   again and again, all day long.

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away,
   and broken my bones;
⁵he has besieged and enveloped me
   with bitterness and tribulation;
⁶he has made me sit in darkness
   like the dead of long ago.

⁷He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
   he has put heavy chains on me;
⁸though I call and cry for help,
   he shuts out my prayer;
⁹he has blocked my ways with hewn stones,
   he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰He is a bear lying in wait for me,
   a lion in hiding;
¹¹he led me off my way and tore me to pieces;
   he has made me desolate;
¹²he bent his bow and set me
   as a mark for his arrow.

¹³He shot into my vitals
   the arrows of his quiver;
¹⁴I have become the laughing-stock of all my people,
   the object of their taunt-songs all day long.
¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness,
   he has glutted me with wormwood.

¹⁶He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
   and made me cower in ashes;
¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace;
   I have forgotten what happiness is;
¹⁸so I say, ‘Gone is my glory,
   and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.’

¹⁹The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
   is wormwood and gall!
²⁰My soul continually thinks of it
   and is bowed down within me.
²¹But this I call to mind,
   and therefore I have hope:

²²The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,^*
   his mercies never come to an end;
²³they are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
²⁴‘The 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 that seeks him.
²⁶It is good that one should wait quietly
   for the salvation of the Lord.
²⁷It is good for one to bear
   the yoke in youth,
²⁸to sit alone in silence
   when the Lord has imposed it,
²⁹to put one’s mouth to the dust
   (there may yet be hope),
³⁰to give one’s cheek to the smiter,
   and be filled with insults.

³¹For the Lord will not
   reject for ever.
³²Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
   according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
³³for he does not willingly afflict
   or grieve anyone.