1.
How has the Lord in His anger brought darkness upon the daughter of Zion! He has cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel, and has not remembered His footstool on the day of His anger.
2.
The Lord has destroyed and has had no pity on all the habitations of Jacob; in His wrath He has broken down the strongholds of Judah; He has struck [them] to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3.
He has cut down in fierce anger all the strength of Israel; He has withdrawn His right hand [that shielded Israel] from the enemy, and He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, consuming all around.
4.
He has bent His bow like an enemy, standing [with] His right hand as an adversary, and He has slain all that were pleasant to the eye; in the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury, [which is] like fire.
5.
The Lord has become like an enemy; He has destroyed Israel; He has destroyed all its palaces, laid in ruins its strongholds, and He increased in the daughter of Judah, pain and wailing.
6.
And He stripped His Tabernacle like a garden, and laid in ruins His Meeting-Place; the Lord has caused festival and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and in His fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7.
The Lord has rejected His altar, He has abolished His Sanctuary, He has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they raised a clamor in the House of the Lord, as on a day of a festival.
8.
The Lord determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He stretched out a line; He did not restrain His hand from destroying; indeed, He caused rampart and wall to mourn, [and] they languish together.
9.
Her gates are sunk into the ground; He has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are [exiled] among the heathens, [and] there is no more teaching; moreover, her prophets obtain no vision from the Lord.
10.
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence, they laid dust on their heads [and] put on sackcloth; the maidens of Jerusalem bowed their heads to the ground.
11.
My eyes are spent with tears, my innards burn; my heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, while infant and suckling faint in the streets of the city.
12.
They say to their mothers, "Where are corn and wine?" as they faint like one slain, in the streets of the city, while their soul ebbs away on their mothers' bosom.
13.
What shall I testify for you? What shall 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?
14.
Your prophets have seen false and senseless visions for you, and they have not exposed your iniquity to straighten out your backsliding, but have prophesied for you false and misleading oracles.
15.
All who passed along the road clapped their hands at you, they hissed and wagged their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem; "Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?"
16.
All your enemies have opened their mouths wide against you; they hissed and gnashed their teeth [and] said, "We have engulfed [her]! Indeed, this is the day we longed for; we have found it; we have seen it!"
17.
The Lord has done what He devised, He has carried out His word, which He decreed long ago, [and] has devastated without pity; He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you, and exalted the might of your adversaries.
18.
Their heart cried out to the Lord: "O wall of the daughter of Zion! Let tears stream down like a torrent day and night, give yourself no respite, let the pupil of your eye not rest!
19.
Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord; lift up your hands to Him [and pray] for the lives of your infants, who faint because of hunger at the head of every street."
20.
See, O Lord, and behold, to whom [else] have You done thus! Will women devour their own offspring, children that are petted? Will priest and prophet be slain in the Sanctuary of the Lord?
21.
In the streets, on the [bare] ground lie [both] young and old, my maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword; You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered [them] without mercy.
22.
You have summoned my neighbors on every side, as though it were a feast day, and on the day of the Lord's anger there was none that escaped or survived; those whom I dandled and reared, my enemy exterminated.
