AFV2020 - Lamentations

Chapter 1

1:1  How isolated sits the city that was full of people! She has become like a widow, once great among the nations, a noblewoman among the nations, but now has become a tribute payer.

1:2  She bitterly weeps in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers, she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they became her enemies.

1:3  Judah has gone into captivity, under affliction and great slavery. She dwells among the nations; she finds no rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her between the narrow straits.

1:4  The roads of Zion mourn because no one comes to the appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests sigh; her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

1:5  Her adversaries have become the head; her enemies prosper; for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

1:6  And from the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed. Her princes have become like bucks: they find no pasture, and they have fled without strength before the pursuer.

1:7  In the days of her affliction and her wandering, Jerusalem remembered all her desirable things that she had in the days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and no one helped her, the adversaries saw her; they laughed at her annihilation.

1:8  Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore she has become filthy. All who honored her, despise her because they saw her nakedness; yea, she sighs and turns backward.

1:9  Her filthiness is in her skirts; she did not consider her future, therefore she has fallen astonishingly. She has no comforter. "Behold, O LORD, my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself."

1:10  The enemy has stretched out his hands upon all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter into her sanctuary, whom You commanded that they should not enter into Your congregation.

1:11  All her people sigh; they seek bread. They have given their treasures for food to relieve the soul. "See, O LORD, and look on me, for I have become vile."

1:12  "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any pain like my pain which is done to me, with which the LORD has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.

1:13  From on high He has sent fire into my bones and it prevailed against them. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back; He has made me desolate and faint all the day.

1:14  The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they intertwine; they rise on my neck. He has made my strength to falter; the LORD has delivered me into their hands—those whom I cannot withstand.

1:15  The LORD has trampled all my mighty ones in my midst; He has called a gathering against me to crush my young men. The LORD has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah as in a winepress.

1:16  For these things I weep; my eyes, my eyes run down with water, because the comforter who could revive my courage is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy has prevailed."

1:17  Zion spreads forth her hands; and there is none to comfort her; the LORD has commanded concerning Jacob that his enemies should be all around him; Jerusalem has become as a filthy thing among them.

1:18  "The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His commandment. I beseech you, all people, hear and behold my sorrow. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

1:19  I called for my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and my elders perished in the city while they sought for food to revive their strength.

1:20  Behold, O LORD, for I am in distress; my bowels burn; my heart is wrung out within me, for I have grievously rebelled. In the streets the sword bereaves; in the house is the likeness of death.

1:21  They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have done it. But You will bring the day that You have proclaimed, and they shall yet be like me.

1:22  Let all their wickedness come before You; and do to them as You have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint."

Chapter 2

2:1  How the LORD has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He cast down the beauty of Israel from the heavens to the earth and remembered not His footstool in the day of His anger.

2:2  The LORD unsparingly swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob. In His wrath He has thrown down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground. He has defiled the kingdom and its rulers.

2:3  He has cut off all the horn of Israel in His fierce anger; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy, and He burned against Jacob like a flaming fire which devours all around.

2:4  He has bent His bow like an enemy, standing with His right hand like an adversary, and has slain all the pride of our eyes. In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion, He poured out His fury like fire.

2:5  The LORD has become like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel; He has destroyed all her palaces, and he has laid in ruins its stronghold. And He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.

2:6  And He has violently taken away his tabernacle as if it were of a garden. He has destroyed His place of assembly. The LORD has caused the solemn feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and He has despised the king and the priest in His fierce indignation.

2:7  The LORD has cast off His altar; He has abhorred His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces into the enemy's hand. They made a noise in the house of the LORD, as a day of solemn feast.

2:8  The LORD purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying, and He made the rampart and wall lament; they languish together.

2:9  Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her kings and her rulers are among the nations. The law is no more; and her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.

2:10  The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and are silent; they throw dust upon their heads; they gird on sackclothes. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

2:11  My eyes fail with tears; my inward parts burn; my liver is poured on the ground for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the babies faint in the streets of the city.

2:12  They say to their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" In their fainting they are like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives are poured out upon their mothers' bosom.

2:13  What can I say to you? What thing shall I compare to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I liken you to, so that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is great like the sea! Who can heal you?

2:14  Your prophets have seen false and foolish things for you, and they have not uncovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity; but they have seen false oracles and delusions for you.

2:15  All who pass by clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, "Is this the city which they called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?"

2:16  All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; they hiss and gnash their teeth; they say, "We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we have longed for; now we have found it, we have seen it."

2:17  The LORD has done what He has purposed; He has fulfilled His word which He commanded from the days of old. He has thrown down unsparingly. And He caused your enemy to rejoice over you; He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.

2:18  Their heart cried to the LORD. "O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night; give yourself no rest. Let not the apple of your eye cease.

2:19  Arise, cry out in the night. At the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the LORD. Lift up your hands toward Him for the life of your children who are faint for hunger in the head of every street."

2:20  "Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, children of tender care? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the holy place of the LORD?

2:21  Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins 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.

2:22  You have called as in a feast day the terrors all around me, and there was not one who escaped or survived in the day of the LORD'S anger. Those whom I have swaddled and brought up, my enemy has destroyed them."

Chapter 3

3:1  I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

3:2  He has led me and made me go in darkness and not into light.

3:3  Surely He has turned, He has turned His hand against me again and again all day long.

3:4  He has wasted my flesh and my skin; He has broken my bones.

3:5  He has besieged me and has encircled me with bitterness and tribulation.

3:6  He has made me live in dark places, like those who have long been dead.

3:7  He has set a fence around me so that I cannot go out; He has made my chain heavy.

3:8  Also when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.

3:9  He has blocked my ways with cut stone; He has made my paths crooked.

3:10  He was as a bear lying in wait for me, as a lion in secret places.

3:11  He has turned my ways aside andhas torn me to pieces. He hasmade me desolate.

3:12  He has bent His bow and hasset me as a mark for the arrow.

3:13  He has caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my inward parts.

3:14  I was a mockery to all my people, their song all the day.

3:15  He has filled me with bitterness and made me drunk with wormwood.

3:16  He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; He has made me to wallow in ashes.

3:17  And my soul is removed far off from peace; I have forgotten happiness.

3:18  And I said, "My strength and my hope from the LORD are perished."

3:19  Remember my affliction and my anguish, the wormwood and bitterness of gall.

3:20  My soul vividly remembers and is bowed down within me.

3:21  I recall this to my mind; therefore I have hope.

3:22  It is by the LORD'S mercies that we are not destroyed, because His compassions never fail.

3:23  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

3:24  "The LORD is my portion," says my soul; "therefore I will hope in Him."

3:25  The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.

3:26  It is good that one should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

3:27  It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

3:28  Let him sit alone and in silence because He laid it upon him.

3:29  He puts his mouth in the dust, if perhaps there may yet be hope.

3:30  Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled with reproach.

3:31  For the LORD will not cast off forever;

3:32  For though He causes grief, yet He will have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.

3:33  For He does not afflict willingly, nor does He grieve the children of men;

3:34  To crush all the prisoners of the earth under his feet;

3:35  To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High;

3:36  To subvert a man in his cause—of this the LORD does not approve.

3:37  Who is this who speaks, and it comes to pass, when the LORD does not ordain it?

3:38  From the mouth of the Most High does not the bad and the good proceed?

3:39  Wherefore does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

3:40  Let us test and examine our ways, and return again to the LORD.

3:41  Let us lift up our heart and hands to God in heaven.

3:42  We have transgressed and have rebelled; You have not pardoned.

3:43  You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain unsparingly;

3:44  You have covered Yourself with a cloud that our prayer should not pass through.

3:45  You have made us as the offscouring and refuse among the people.

3:46  All our enemies have opened their mouths railing against us.

3:47  Fear and a snare have come upon us, desolation and destruction.

3:48  Streams of water run down my eye for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

3:49  My eye flows down and does not cease, without any intermission,

3:50  Until the LORD shall look down and behold from heaven.

3:51  My eye afflicted my soul because of all the daughters of my city.

3:52  My enemies have hunted me, like a bird, without cause.

3:53  They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

3:54  Waters flowed over my head; then I said, "I am cut off."

3:55  I called upon Your name, O LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.

3:56  You have heard my voice: "Do not hide Your ear at my sighing, at my cry for help."

3:57  You drew near in the day that I called upon You; You said, "Fear not."

3:58  O LORD, You have pleaded for the causes of my soul; You have redeemed my life.

3:59  O LORD, You have seen the wrong done to me; You judge my cause.

3:60  You have seen all their vengeance, all their devises against me.

3:61  You have heard their taunt, O LORD, all their imaginations against me;

3:62  The lips of those who rose up against me, and their scheming against me all the day.

3:63  Behold at their sitting down and their rising up; I am their mocking song.

3:64  You will render to them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.

3:65  You will give them dullness of heart—Your curse be on them!

3:66  You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.

Chapter 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 hands!

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

4:4  The infant's tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth in thirst; the young children ask for bread; there is no one breaking it for them.

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

4:6  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, with no hands to help her.

4:7  Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:

4:8  But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled upon their bones; it is dried up; it has become like a stick.

4:9  Better are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger; for these pine away, stricken for want of the fruits of the field.

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

4:11  The LORD has accomplished 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 adversary and the enemy would go into Jerusalem's gates.

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

4:14  They wandered blindly through the streets; they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their clothes.

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

4:16  The face of the LORD has scattered them; He will no longer watch over them; they did not respect the persons of the priests; they were not gracious to the elders.

4:17  As for us, our eyes fail, for our help is vain; in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

4:18  They hunted our steps so that we cannot go in our streets; our end was near, our days were fulfilled, for our end has come.

4:19  Our persecutors were swifter than the eagles of heaven; 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, "Under 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 made drunken and stripped naked.

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

Chapter 5

5:1  Remember, O LORD, what has come upon us; look down and see our reproach.

5:2  Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens, our houses to foreigners.

5:3  We are orphans and fatherless; our mothers are as widows.

5:4  We have drunk our water for money; our wood comes for a price.

5:5  Our pursuers are at our necks; we grow weary; no rest is given to us.

5:6  We have given the hand to Egypt, to Assyria, to be satisfied with bread.

5:7  Our fathers have sinned and are not; we have borne their iniquities.

5:8  Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us out of their hand.

5:9  We bring in our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

5:10  Our skin is hot like an oven because of the burning heat of famine.

5:11  They raped the women in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.

5:12  Rulers were hanged by the hand; the faces of elders were not honored.

5:13  They took the young men to grind, and the children have stumbled under the loads of wood.

5:14  The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.

5:15  The joy of our heart has ceased; our dance has turned into mourning.

5:16  The crown has fallen from our head. Woe now to us! For we have sinned.

5:17  Our heart is faint for this; our eyes are dim for these things.

5:18  Because the mountain of Zion lies desolate, the foxes walk upon it.

5:19  You, O LORD, remain forever; Your throne is from generation to generation.

5:20  Why do You forget us forever and forsake us for so long a time?

5:21  Return us to You, O LORD, and we will return; renew our days as of old,

5:22  Unless You have utterly rejected us, and are exceedingly angry against us!