Lamentations 1

¹ Oh, how lonely she sits, the city once thronged with people, as if suddenly widowed. Though once great among the nations, she, the princess among provinces, is now reduced to vassalage.

² She passes her nights weeping; the tears run down her cheeks. Not one of all her lovers remains to comfort her. Her friends have all betrayed her and become her enemies.

³ Judah is exiled after her downfall and harsh enslavement. She dwells among the nations now, but finds no relief there. Her pursuers all overtake her in places where there is no way out.

⁴ The roads to Zion are in mourning; no one comes to her festivals now. Her gateways are all deserted; her priests groan; her virgins are grief-stricken; she suffers bitterly.

⁵ Her oppressors now have the upper hand, her enemies enjoy prosperity; Yahweh himself has made her suffer for her many, many sins; her little children have left her as prisoners driven in front of the oppressor.

⁶ From the daughter of Zion all her glory has departed. Her leaders were like rams that find no pasture. Listlessly they took the road, driven by the drover.

⁷ Jerusalem remembers her days of misery and distress, when her people fell before the enemy and no one came to help her. Her oppressors looked at her and laughed at her downfall.

⁸ Jerusalem has sinned grievously and she has become a thing unclean. All those who used to honour her despise her; they have seen her nakedness. While she herself groans and turns her face away.

⁹ Her filth clings to the hem of her clothes. She had never thought of ending like this, sinking as low as this. She has no one to comfort her. ‘Yahweh, look on my degradation; my enemy is triumphant.’

¹⁰ The oppressor has laid his hands on all she treasured; she has seen the pagans enter her sanctuary, men whom you had forbidden to attend your Assembly.

¹¹ All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their valuables for food, to keep life in them. ‘Look, Yahweh, and mark how despised I am.’

¹² All you who pass this way, look and see: is any sorrow like the sorrow that afflicts me, with which Yahweh has struck me on the day of his burning anger?

¹³ He has sent a fire from on high down into my bones; he has laid a snare underneath my feet; he has brought me down; he has left me deserted, and ill all day long.

¹⁴ The yoke of my sins weighs down on me, his, the hand that knotted them; their yoke is on my neck, he makes my energy fail. The Lord has put me at their mercy, I have no strength left to resist.

¹⁵ Yahweh has spurned the bravest fighters I had; he has summoned a host against me to destroy the flower of my army. In his winepress the Lord has trampled the virgin daughter of Judah.

¹⁶ And that is why I weep; my eyes dissolve in tears, since the comforter who could revive me is far away. My sons are in despair, the enemy has proved too strong.

¹⁷ Zion stretches out her hands; no one is there to comfort her. Yahweh has summoned against Jacob foes from every side; Jerusalem has become an unclean thing to them.

¹⁸ Yahweh is acting rightly, for I had rebelled against his order. Listen therefore, all you nations, and see my sorrow. My virgins and my young men have gone into exile.

¹⁹ I called for help to my lovers; they failed me. My priests and my elders were perishing inside the city, as they searched for food to keep life in them.

²⁰ Look, Yahweh. How great my anguish! My entrails shudder; my heart turns over inside me. Alas! I have always been a rebel – and now, outside, the sword has robbed me of my children, and inside, there is death.

²¹ Listen to my groaning; there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies gloat over my disaster: this is your doing. Bring the day you once foretold, so that they may be as I am.

²² Let all their wickedness come before you; treat them as you have treated me for all my sins. Many indeed are my groans, my heart is sick.