LAMENTATIONS
Lamentations 1
1 How doth the city sit solitary, [that was] full of people! [how] is she become as a widow! she
[that was] great among the nations, [and] princess among the provinces, [how]
is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears [are]
on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort [her]: all her
friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3
4 The ways of
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
for Yahweh hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her
children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all
her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into
the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, [and]
did mock at her sabbaths.
8
9 Her filthiness [is] in her skirts; she remembereth
not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O
Yahweh, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified [himself].
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she
hath seen [that] the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom
thou didst command [that] they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things
for meat to relieve the soul: see, O Yahweh, and consider; for I am become
vile.
12 [Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold,
and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
wherewith Yahweh hath afflicted [me] in the day of His fierce anger.
13 From above hath He sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth
against them: He hath spread a net for my feet, He hath turned me back: He hath
made me desolate [and] faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand: they are wreathed, [and]
come up upon my neck: He hath made my strength to fall,
Yahweh hath delivered me into [their] hands, [from whom] I am not able to rise
up.
15 Yahweh hath trodden under foot all my mighty [men] in the midst of me: He
hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: Yahweh hath trodden
the virgin, the daughter of
16 For these [things] I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth
down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from
me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17
18 Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled against His commandment: hear, I
pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are
gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, [but] they deceived me: my priests and mine elders
gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their
souls.
20 Behold, O Yahweh; for I [am] in distress: my bowels
are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
abroad the sword bereaveth, at home [there is] as
death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: [there is] none to comfort me: all mine enemies
have heard of my trouble; they are glad that Thou hast done [it]: Thou wilt
bring the day [that] Thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before Thee; and do unto them, as Thou hast
done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs [are] many, and my heart
[is] faint.
1 How hath Yahweh covered the daughter of
2 Yahweh hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in His wrath the strong holds of the daughter of
3 He hath cut off in [His] fierce anger all the horn of
4 He hath bent His bow like an enemy: He stood with His right hand as an
adversary, and slew all [that were] pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of
the daughter of
5 Yahweh was as an enemy: He hath swallowed up
6 And He hath violently taken away His tabernacle, as [if it were of] a garden:
He hath destroyed His places of the assembly: Yahweh hath caused the solemn
feasts and sabbaths to be
forgotten in
7 Yahweh hath cast off His altar, He hath abhorred His sanctuary, He hath given
up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise
in the house of Yahweh, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 Yahweh hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; He hath destroyed and broken her bars:
her king and her princes [are] among the Gentiles: the law [is] no [more]; her
prophets also find no vision from Yahweh.
10 The elders of the daughter of
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my
liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my
people; because the children and the sucklings swoon
in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where [is] corn and wine? When
they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was
poured out into their mothers' bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what
thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not
discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee
false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap [their] hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at
the daughter of
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash
the teeth: they say, We have swallowed [her] up: certainly
this [is] the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen [it].
17 Yahweh hath done [that] which He had devised; He hath fulfilled His word
that He had commanded in the days of old: He hath thrown down, and hath not
pitied: and He hath caused [thine] enemy to rejoice over thee, He hath set up
the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto Yahweh, O wall of the daughter of
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine
heart like water before the face of Yahweh: lift up thy hands toward Him for
the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger
in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Yahweh, and consider to whom Thou hast done this. Shall the women
eat their fruit, [and] children of a span long? shall
the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of Yahweh?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my
young men are fallen by the sword; Thou hast slain [them] in the day of Thine
anger; Thou hast killed, [and] not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the
day of Yahweh's anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and
brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I [am] the man [that] hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought [me into] darkness, but not [into] light.
3 Surely against me is He turned; He turneth His hand [against me] all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath He made old; He hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed [me] with
gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as [they that be] dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: He hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, He shutteth
out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, He hath made my paths crooked.
10 He [was] unto me [as] a bear lying in wait, [and as] a lion in secret
places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: He hath made me
desolate.
12 He hath bent His bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; [and] their song
all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath made me
drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, He
hath covered me with ashes.
17 And Thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat
prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from Yahweh:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 Thy soul hath [them] still in remembrance, and will mourn over me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 [It is of] Yahweh's mercies that we are not consumed, because His
compassions fail not.
23 [They are] new every morning: great [is] Thy faithfulness.
24 Yahweh [is] my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him.
25 Yahweh [is] good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul [that] seeketh Him.
26 [It is] good that [a man] should both hope and quietly wait for the
salvation of Yahweh.
27 [It is] good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth
silence, because he hath borne [it] upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there
may be hope.
30 He giveth [his] cheek to him that smiteth him: he
is filled full with reproach.
31 For Yahweh will not cast off for ever:
32 But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the
multitude of His mercies.
33 For He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under His feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, Yahweh approveth
not.
37 Who [is] he [that] saith, and it cometh to pass, [when] Yahweh commandeth [it] not?
38 Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not
evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh.
41 Let us lift up our heart with [our] hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: Thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: Thou hast slain, Thou hast
not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered Thyself with a cloud, that [our]
prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us [as] the offscouring and refuse
in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and
destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the
destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth
not, without any intermission,
50 Till Yahweh look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the
daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; [then] I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon Thy name, O Yahweh, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not Thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day [that] I called upon
Thee: Thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Yahweh, Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; Thou hast redeemed my
life.
59 O Yahweh, Thou hast seen my wrong: judge Thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance [and] all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Yahweh, [and] all their imaginations
against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all
the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I [am] their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Yahweh, according to the work of their
hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, Thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of Yahweh.
1 How is the gold become dim! [how]
is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the
sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young
ones: the daughter of my people [is become] cruel, like the ostriches in the
wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the
roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, [and] no man breaketh [it] unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were
brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater
than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment,
and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were
more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing [was] of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their
skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is
become like a stick.
9 [They that be] slain with the sword are better than [they that be] slain with
hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for [want of] the fruits of the
field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their
own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my
people.
11 Yahweh hath accomplished His fury; He hath poured out His fierce anger, and
hath kindled a fire in
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have
believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of
13 For the sins of her prophets, [and] the iniquities of her priests, that have
shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered [as] blind [men] in the streets, they have polluted
themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; [it is] unclean; depart, depart, touch not:
when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn [there].
16 The anger of Yahweh hath divided them; He will no more regard them: they
respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured
not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have
watched for a nation [that] could not save [us].
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our
streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us
upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, was taken in their pits,
of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among
the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of
1 Remember, O Yahweh, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our
reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers [are] as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks [are] under persecution: we labour, [and]
have no rest.
6 We have given the hand [to] the Egyptians, [and to] the Assyrians, to be
satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, [and are] not; and we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us: [there is] none that doth deliver [us] out of
their hand.
9 We gat our bread with [the peril of] our lives because of the sword of the
wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen [from] our head: woe unto us, that
we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint; for these [things] our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the
19 Thou, O Yahweh, remainest for
ever; Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost Thou forget us for ever, [and] forsake us so long time?
21 Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Yahweh, and we shall be turned; renew our days as
of old.
22 But Thou hast utterly rejected us; Thou art very wroth against us.