The Sorrows of Zion
How alonely sits the city
That was bfull of people!
She has become like a cwidow
Who was once dgreat among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces
Has become a eforced laborer!
2 She aweeps bitterly in the night
And her tears are on her cheeks;
She has none to comfort her
Among all her blovers.
All her friends have cdealt treacherously with her;
They have become her enemies.
3 aJudah has gone into exile under affliction
And under harsh servitude;
She dwells bamong the nations,
But she has found no rest;
All cher pursuers have overtaken her
In the midst of distress.
4 The roads of Zion are in mourning
Because ano one comes to the appointed feasts.
All her gates are bdesolate;
Her priests are groaning,
Her cvirgins are afflicted,
And she herself is dbitter.
5 Her adversaries have become her masters,
Her enemies prosper;
For the Lord has acaused her grief
Because of the multitude of her transgressions;
Her little ones have gone away
As captives before the adversary.
6 All her amajesty
Has departed from the daughter of Zion;
Her princes have become like deer
That have found no pasture;
And they have bfled without strength
Before the pursuer.
7 In the days of her affliction and homelessness
aJerusalem remembers all her precious things
That were from the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the adversary
And bno one helped her.
The adversaries saw her,
They cmocked at her ruin.
8 Jerusalem sinned agreatly,
Therefore bshe has become an unclean thing.
All who honored her despise her
Because they have seen her nakedness;
Even cshe herself groans and turns away.
9 Her auncleanness was in her skirts;
She did not consider her bfuture.
Therefore she has cfallen astonishingly;
dShe has no comforter.
“eSee, O Lord, my affliction,
For the enemy has fmagnified himself!”
10 The adversary has stretched out his hand
Over all her precious things,
For she has seen the anations enter her sanctuary,
The ones whom You commanded
That they should bnot enter into Your congregation.
11 All her people groan aseeking bread;
They have given their precious things for food
To brestore their lives themselves.
“See, O Lord, and look,
For I am cdespised.”
12 “Is ait nothing to all you who pass this way?
Look and see if there is any pain like my pain
Which was severely dealt out to me,
Which the bLord inflicted on the day of His cfierce anger.
13 “From on high He sent fire into my abones,
And it prevailed over them.
He has spread a bnet for my feet;
He has turned me back;
He has made me cdesolate,
Faint all day long.
14 “The ayoke of my transgressions is bound;
By His hand they are knit together.
They have bcome upon my neck;
He has made my strength fail.
The Lord chas given me into the hands
Of those against whom I am not able to stand.
15 “The aLord has rejected all my strong men
In my midst;
He has called an appointed time against me
To crush my byoung men;
The Lord has ctrodden as in a wine press
The virgin daughter of Judah.
16 “For these things I aweep;
My eyes run down with water;
Because far from me is a bcomforter,
One who restores my soul.
My children are desolate
Because the enemy has prevailed.”
17 Zion astretches out her hands;
There is no one to comfort her;
The Lord has bcommanded concerning Jacob
That the ones round about him should be his adversaries;
cJerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.
18 “The Lord is arighteous;
For I have brebelled against His command;
Hear now, all peoples,
And cbehold my pain;
dMy virgins and my young men
Have gone into captivity.
19 “I acalled to my lovers, but they deceived me;
My bpriests and my elders perished in the city
While they sought food to crestore their strength themselves.
20 “See, O Lord, for I am in distress;
My aspirit is greatly troubled;
My heart is overturned within me,
For I have been very brebellious.
In the street the sword slays;
In the house it is like death.
21 “They have heard that I agroan;
There is no one to comfort me;
All my enemies have heard of my calamity;
They are bglad that You have done it.
Oh, that You would bring the day which You have proclaimed,
That they may become clike me.
22 “Let all their wickedness come before You;
And adeal with them as You have dealt with me
For all my transgressions;
For my groans are many and my heart is faint.”
God’s Anger over Israel
How the Lord has acovered the daughter of Zion
With a cloud in His anger!
He has bcast from heaven to earth
The cglory of Israel,
And has not remembered His dfootstool
In the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has aswallowed up; He has not spared
All the habitations of Jacob.
In His wrath He has bthrown down
The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has cbrought them down to the ground;
He has dprofaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 In fierce anger He has cut off
All the astrength of Israel;
He has bdrawn back His right hand
From before the enemy.
And He has cburned in Jacob like a flaming fire
Consuming round about.
4 He has bent His abow like an enemy;
He has set His right hand like an adversary
And slain all that were bpleasant to the eye;
In the tent of the daughter of Zion
He has cpoured out His wrath like fire.
5 The Lord has become like an aenemy.
He has bswallowed up Israel;
He has swallowed up all its cpalaces,
He has destroyed its strongholds
And dmultiplied in the daughter of Judah
Mourning and moaning.
6 And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth;
He has adestroyed His appointed meeting place.
The Lord has bcaused to be forgotten
The appointed feast and sabbath in Zion,
And He has cdespised king and priest
In the indignation of His anger.
7 The Lord has arejected His altar,
He has abandoned His sanctuary;
He bhas delivered into the hand of the enemy
The walls of her palaces.
They have made a cnoise in the house of the Lord
As in the day of an appointed feast.
8 The Lord determined to destroy
The wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has astretched out a line,
He has not restrained His hand from destroying,
And He has bcaused rampart and wall to lament;
They have languished together.
9 Her agates have sunk into the ground,
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
The blaw is no more.
Also, her prophets find
cNo vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
aSit on the ground, they bare silent.
They have thrown cdust on their heads;
They have girded themselves with dsackcloth.
The evirgins of Jerusalem
Have bowed their heads to the ground.
11 My aeyes fail because of tears,
My bspirit is greatly troubled;
My cheart is poured out on the earth
dBecause of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
When elittle ones and infants faint
In the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
“aWhere is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their blife is poured out
On their mothers’ bosom.
13 How shall I admonish you?
To what ashall I compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what shall I liken you as I comfort you,
O bvirgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can cheal you?
14 Your aprophets have seen for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not bexposed your iniquity
So as to restore you from captivity,
But they have cseen for you false and misleading oracles.
15 All who pass along the way
aClap their hands in derision at you;
They bhiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem,
“Is this the city of which they said,
‘cThe perfection of beauty,
dA joy to all the earth’?”
16 All ayour enemies
Have opened their mouths wide against you;
They hiss and bgnash their teeth.
They say, “We have cswallowed her up!
Surely this is the dday for which we waited;
We have reached it, we have seen it.”
17 The Lord has adone what He purposed;
He has accomplished His word
Which He commanded from days of old.
He has thrown down bwithout sparing,
And He has caused the enemy to crejoice over you;
He has dexalted the might of your adversaries.
18 Their aheart cried out to the Lord,
“O bwall of the daughter of Zion,
Let your ctears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief,
Let your eyes have no rest.
19 “Arise, cry aloud in the anight
At the beginning of the night watches;
bPour out your heart like water
Before the presence of the Lord;
Lift up your hands to Him
For the clife of your little ones
Who are dfaint because of hunger
At the head of every street.”
20 See, O Lord, and look!
With awhom have You dealt thus?
Should women beat their offspring,
The little ones who were born healthy?
Should cpriest and prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 On the ground in the streets
Lie ayoung and old;
My bvirgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered, cnot sparing.
22 You called as in the day of an appointed feast
My aterrors on every side;
And there was bno one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those cwhom I bore and reared,
My enemy annihilated them.
Jeremiah Shares Israel’s Affliction
I am the man who has aseen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.
2 He has driven me and made me walk
In adarkness and not in light.
3 Surely against me He has aturned His hand
Repeatedly all the day.
4 He has caused my aflesh and my skin to waste away,
He has bbroken my bones.
5 He has abesieged and encompassed me with bbitterness and hardship.
6 In adark places He has made me dwell,
Like those who have long been dead.
7 He has awalled me in so that I cannot go out;
He has made my bchain heavy.
8 Even when I cry out and call for help,
He ashuts out my prayer.
9 He has ablocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10 He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.
11 He has turned aside my ways and atorn me to pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12 He abent His bow
And bset me as a target for the arrow.
13 He made the arrows of His aquiver
To enter into my inward parts.
14 I have become a alaughingstock to all my people,
Their mocking bsong all the day.
15 He has afilled me with bitterness,
He has made me drunk with wormwood.
16 He has abroken my teeth with bgravel;
He has made me cower in the cdust.
17 My soul has been rejected afrom peace;
I have forgotten happiness.
18 So I say, “My strength has perished,
And so has my ahope from the Lord.”
Hope of Relief in God’s Mercy
19 Remember my affliction and my wandering, the awormwood and bitterness.
20 Surely amy soul remembers
And is bbowed down within me.
21 This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have ahope.
22 The Lord’s alovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
bFor His compassions never fail.
23 They are new aevery morning;
Great is bYour faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my aportion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I bhave hope in Him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who await for Him,
To the person who bseeks Him.
26 It is good that he awaits silently
For the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke in his youth.
28 Let him asit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the adust,
Perhaps there is bhope.
30 Let him give his acheek to the smiter,
Let him be filled with reproach.
31 For the Lord will anot reject forever,
32 For if He causes grief,
Then He will have acompassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.
33 For He adoes not afflict willingly
Or grieve the sons of men.
34 To crush under His feet
All the prisoners of the land,
35 To deprive a man of ajustice
In the presence of the Most High,
36 To adefraud a man in his lawsuit—
Of these things the Lord does not approve.
37 Who is there who speaks and it acomes to pass,
Unless the Lord has commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That aboth good and ill go forth?
39 Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer acomplaint in view of his sins?
40 Let us aexamine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the Lord.
41 We alift up our heart and hands
Toward God in heaven;
42 We have atransgressed and rebelled,
You have bnot pardoned.
43 You have covered Yourself with aanger
And bpursued us;
You have slain and chave not spared.
44 You have acovered Yourself with a cloud
So that bno prayer can pass through.
45 You have made us mere aoffscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.
46 All our enemies have aopened their mouths against us.
47 aPanic and pitfall have befallen us,
Devastation and destruction;
48 My aeyes run down with streams of water
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eyes pour down aunceasingly,
Without stopping,
50 Until the Lord alooks down
And sees from heaven.
51 My eyes bring pain to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.
52 My enemies awithout cause
Hunted me down blike a bird;
53 They have silenced me ain the pit
And have bplaced a stone on me.
54 Waters flowed aover my head;
I said, “I am cut off!”
55 I acalled on Your name, O Lord,
Out of the lowest pit.
56 You have aheard my voice,
“bDo not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,
From my cry for help.”
57 You adrew near when I called on You;
You said, “bDo not fear!”
58 O Lord, You ahave pleaded my soul’s cause;
You have bredeemed my life.
59 O Lord, You have aseen my oppression;
bJudge my case.
60 You have seen all their vengeance,
All their aschemes against me.
61 You have heard their areproach, O Lord,
All their schemes against me.
62 The alips of my assailants and their whispering
Are against me all day long.
63 Look on their asitting and their rising;
bI am their mocking song.
64 You will arecompense them, O Lord,
According to the work of their hands.
65 You will give them ahardness of heart,
Your curse will be on them.
66 You will apursue them in anger and destroy them
From under the bheavens of the Lord!
Distress of the Siege Described
How adark the gold has become,
How the pure gold has changed!
The sacred stones are poured out
At the corner of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion,
Weighed against fine gold,
How they are regarded as aearthen jars,
The work of a potter’s hands!
3 Even ajackals offer the breast,
They nurse their young;
But the daughter of my people has become bcruel
Like costriches in the wilderness.
4 The atongue of the infant cleaves
To the roof of its mouth because of bthirst;
The little ones cask for bread,
But no one breaks it for them.
5 Those who ate adelicacies
Are desolate in the streets;
Those reared in purple
Embrace ash pits.
6 For the iniquity of the daughter of my people
Is greater than the asin of Sodom,
Which was boverthrown as in a moment,
And no hands were turned toward her.
7 Her consecrated ones were apurer than snow,
They were whiter than milk;
They were more ruddy in body than corals,
Their polishing was like blapis lazuli.
8 Their appearance is ablacker than soot,
They are not recognized in the streets;
Their bskin is shriveled on their bones,
It is withered, it has become like wood.
9 Better are those aslain with the sword
Than those slain with hunger;
For they bpine away, being stricken
For lack of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of compassionate women
aBoiled their own children;
They became bfood for them
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord has aaccomplished His wrath,
He has poured out His fierce anger;
And He has bkindled a fire in Zion
Which has consumed its foundations.
12 The kings of the earth did not believe,
Nor did any of athe inhabitants of the world,
That the adversary and the enemy
Could benter the gates of Jerusalem.
13 Because of the sins of her aprophets
And the iniquities of her priests,
Who have shed in her midst
The bblood of the righteous;
14 They wandered, ablind, in the streets;
They were defiled with bblood
So that no one could touch their cgarments.
15 “Depart! aUnclean!” they cried of themselves.
“Depart, depart, do not touch!”
So they bfled and wandered;
Men among the nations said,
“They shall not continue to dwell with us.”
16 The presence of the Lord has scattered them,
He will not continue to regard them;
They did not ahonor the priests,
They did not favor the elders.
17 Yet our eyes failed,
Looking for help was auseless;
In our watching we have watched
For a bnation that could not save.
18 They ahunted our steps
So that we could not walk in our streets;
Our bend drew near,
Our days were finished
For our end had come.
19 Our pursuers were aswifter
Than the eagles of the sky;
They chased us on the mountains,
They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness.
20 The abreath of our nostrils, the bLord’s anointed,
Was ccaptured in their pits,
Of whom we had said, “Under his dshadow
We shall live among the nations.”
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of aEdom,
Who dwells in the land of Uz;
But the bcup will come around to you as well,
You will become drunk and make yourself naked.
22 The punishment of your iniquity has been acompleted, O daughter of Zion;
He will exile you no longer.
But He bwill punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom;
He will expose your sins!
A Prayer for Mercy
Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
Look, and see our areproach!
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to astrangers,
Our bhouses to aliens.
3 We have become orphans awithout a father,
Our mothers are like widows.
4 We have to pay for our drinking awater,
Our wood comes to us at a price.
5 Our pursuers are at our necks;
We are worn out, there is ano rest for us.
6 We have submitted to aEgypt and Assyria to get enough bread.
7 Our afathers sinned, and are no more;
It is we who have borne their iniquities.
8 aSlaves rule over us;
There is bno one to deliver us from their hand.
9 We get our bread at the arisk of our lives
Because of the sword in the wilderness.
10 Our skin has become as ahot as an oven,
Because of the burning heat of famine.
11 They ravished the awomen in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes were hung by their hands;
aElders were not respected.
13 Young men aworked at the grinding mill,
And youths bstumbled under loads of wood.
14 Elders are gone from the gate,
Young men from their amusic.
15 The joy of our hearts has aceased;
Our dancing has been turned into mourning.
16 The acrown has fallen from our head;
bWoe to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our aheart is faint,
Because of these things our beyes are dim;
18 Because of aMount Zion which lies desolate,
bFoxes prowl in it.
19 aYou, O Lord, rule forever;
Your bthrone is from generation to generation.
20 Why do You aforget us forever?
Why do You forsake us so long?
21 aRestore us to You, O Lord, that we may be restored;
Renew bour days as of old,
22 Unless aYou have utterly rejected us
And are exceedingly bangry with us.