MKJV - Lamentations - 4

4:1  How the gold has become dim; the fine gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

4:2  The precious sons of Zion are weighed against pure gold; how they are counted as earthen vessels, the work of a potter's hand!

4:3  Even the jackals draw out the breast; they suckle their young ones. The daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

4:4  The suckling's tongue cleaves to his palate in thirst; the young children ask bread; there is no breaking to them.

4:5  Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those reared in scarlet embrace dunghills.

4:6  And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is heaped more than the sin of Sodom, overthrown as in a moment, and no hands spun on her.

4:7  Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were redder of bone than corals; their cuttings as lapis lazuli, azure blue.

4:8  Their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it is dried up; it has become like wood.

4:9  Better are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger; those who pine away, pierced because the fruits of my fields failed.

4:10  The hands of the pitying women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the ruin of the daughter of my people.

4:11  The LORD has fulfilled His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger, and has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured its foundations.

4:12  The kings of the earth, and all the people of the world, would not have believed that the foe and the hater would go into Jerusalem's gates.

4:13  For the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, shedding the blood of the just in her midst,

4:14  they reeled blind in the streets; they are defiled with blood, so that not any can touch their clothes.

4:15  They cried to them, Depart! Unclean! Depart, depart! Touch not! Indeed they fled and reeled; they said among the nations, They will not continue to live there.

4:16  The face of the LORD has shared them out; He will no longer look on them; they did not respect the persons of the priests; they did not favor the elders.

4:17  While we are, our eyes fail, for our help is vain; in our watching we have watched for a nation; it does not save.

4:18  They hunted our steps from going in our streets; our end was near, our days were fulfilled, for our end has come.

4:19  Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; they pursued us on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.

4:20  The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, In his shadow we shall live among the nations.

4:21  Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, who lives in the land of Uz. The cup also shall pass through unto you; you shall be drunken and stripped naked.

4:22  The punishment of your iniquity is fulfilled, O daughter of Zion; He will exile you no more. He will visit your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.