NHEBME - Lamentations

Chapter 1

1:1  ALEPH How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a forced laborer!

1:2  She weeps bitterly 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 have become her enemies.

1:3  Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and harsh servitude; she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest: all her persecutors overtook her in the midst of her distress.

1:4  The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself 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 young children have gone into captivity before the adversary.

1:6  All majesty has departed from the daughter of Zion: her leaders have become like deer that find no pasture, they fled exhausted before the pursuer.

1:7  Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all her precious things that were from the days of old: when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her, they mocked at her desolations.

1:8  Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she has become as an unclean thing; all who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yes, she groans, and turns away.

1:9  Her filthiness was in her skirts; she did not remember her latter end; therefore her fall was astonishing; she has no comforter. "Look, Lord, on my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself."

1:10  The adversary has spread out his hand on all her precious things: for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

1:11  All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their precious things for food to refresh the soul. "Look, Lord, and see, for I am despised."

1:12  Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on 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 overcame 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  My transgressions are bound into a yoke; by his hand they are fastened together, they are set upon my neck; he has made my strength to fail. The Lord has delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand.

1:15  The Lord has rejected all my mighty men in my midst; he has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.

1:16  For these things I weep; my eyes, my eyes flow with tears; because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.

1:17  Zion spreads forth her hands; there is none to comfort her. The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

1:18  The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please listen all you people, and see my suffering. 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 searched for food to refresh their souls.

1:20  See, Lord, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled. Outside the sword bereaves, inside there is death.

1:21  They have heard that I groan; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it. Bring the day that you have proclaimed, so that they shall end up like me.

1:22  Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them, as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my groans are many, and my heart is faint.

Chapter 2

2:1  ALEPH How the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the splendor of Israel, and hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

2:2  The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground; he has humiliated the kingdom and its princes.

2:3  He has cut off in fierce anger all the strength of Israel. He has drawn back his right hand before the enemy. He has blazed in Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around.

2:4  He has bent his bow like an enemy; his right hand he has positioned like an adversary. He killed all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire.

2:5  The Lord has become as an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all her palaces and has destroyed its strongholds. He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

2:6  He has done violence to his temple, as if it were a garden; he has destroyed his place of assembly. The Lord has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion. He has spurned in his fierce anger the king and the priest.

2:7  The Lord has rejected his altar, he has disowned his sanctuary, and has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces. They have made a shout in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

2:8  The Lord has determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying. He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.

2:9  Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord.

2:10  The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have cast up dust on their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

2:11  My eyes are worn out from weeping, my stomach is churning. My heart is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants faint in the streets of the city.

2:12  They tell their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" When they faint as the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in their mothers' bosom.

2:13  What shall I testify of you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is great like the sea. Who can heal you?

2:14  Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions. They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captivity, but have seen for you false and misleading oracles.

2:15  All that pass by clap their hands at you, they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, "Is this the city that men called 'The perfection of beauty,' 'The joy of the whole earth'?"

2:16  All your enemies have opened wide their mouth against you. 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."

2:17  The Lord has done that which he purposed, he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down, and has not pitied. He has caused the enemy to gloat over you and 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 river day and night. Give yourself no respite; do not let your tears 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 young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.

2:20  Look, Lord, and see to whom you have done like this! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

2:21  The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, without pity.

2:22  You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was none that escaped or remained in the day of the Lord's anger. Those that I have borne and brought up has my enemy destroyed.

Chapter 3

3:1  ALEPH I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

3:2  He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.

3:3  Surely against me he turns his hand again and again all the day.

3:4  My flesh and my skin he has made old; he has broken my bones.

3:5  He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

3:6  He has made me to dwell in dark places, like those that have been long dead.

3:7  He has walled me in, so I can't escape; he has made my chains heavy.

3:8  Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.

3:9  He has walled up my ways with cut stone; he has made my paths crooked.

3:10  He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.

3:11  He has obstructed my path, and torn me in pieces; he has made me desolate.

3:12  He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

3:13  He has caused the arrows of his quiver to pierce my inward parts.

3:14  I have become a laughingstock to all my people, and their song all the day.

3:15  He has filled me with bitterness, he has given me in full measure wormwood.

3:16  He has also broken my teeth with gravel; he has pressed me down in the dust.

3:17  You have removed my soul far away from peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.

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

3:19  Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

3:20  My soul considers them, and is depressed.

3:21  But this I call to my mind; therefore I have hope:

3:22  The Lord's faithful love does not cease; his compassion does not fail.

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

3:24  "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore will I hope in him."

3:25  The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.

3:26  It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

3:27  It is good for a man that he bear the yoke while he is young.

3:28  Let him sit alone and keep silence when he is disciplining him.

3:29  Let him put his mouth to the dust, there may yet be hope.

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

3:31  For the Lord will not reject forever.

3:32  For though he may cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the abundance of his loving kindness.

3:33  For he is not predisposed to bring affliction or suffering to the children of men.

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

3:35  to deprive a man of justice before the face of the Most High,

3:36  to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord does not approve.

3:37  Who can speak a thing and have it come to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?

3:38  Doesn't both calamity and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?

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

3:40  Let us examine and search our ways, and return to the Lord.

3:41  Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.

3:42  We have transgressed and have rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

3:43  You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us; you killed without sparing.

3:44  You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.

3:45  You have made us rubbish and refuse in the midst of the peoples.

3:46  All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

3:47  Fear and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.

3:48  Streams of tears run down from my eyes because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

3:49  My tears flow and do not cease, without respite,

3:50  until the Lord looks down and sees from heaven.

3:51  My eyes bring my soul grief, because of all the daughters of my city.

3:52  They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.

3:53  They have cut off my life in a pit, and have cast a stone on me.

3:54  Waters flowed over my head; I said, 'I am finished.'

3:55  I called on your name, Lord, out of the depths of the pit.

3:56  You heard my voice; do not hide your ear at my sighs, to my cry.

3:57  You drew near in the day that I called on you; you said, "Do not be afraid."

3:58  Lord, you have taken up the case for my soul; you have redeemed my life.

3:59  Lord, you have seen the wrong done to me; judge my case.

3:60  You have seen all their vengeance and all their plots against me.

3:61  You have heard their insults, Lord, and all their plots against me.

3:62  The lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long.

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

3:64  You will render to them what they deserve, Lord, according to the work of their hands.

3:65  You will give them hardness of heart as your curse to them.

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

Chapter 4

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

4:2  The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, How they are regarded as clay jars, the work of the hands of the potter!

4:3  Even the jackals offer the breast, they nurse their young ones, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

4:4  The nursing infant's tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask for bread, but no one gives to them.

4:5  Those who ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.

4:6  For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant, and no hands were laid on her.

4:7  Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies more ruddy than rubies, their appearance was like lapis lazuli.

4:8  They appear darker than soot; they are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered and has become as dry as a stick.

4:9  Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; those who waste away, pierced through, for lack of the fruits of the field.

4:10  The hands of the compassionate women have cooked their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

4:11  The Lord has accomplished his wrath, he has poured out his fierce anger; he has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations.

4:12  The kings of the earth did not believe, neither all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary or the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.

4:13  It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.

4:14  They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, so that men can't touch their garments.

4:15  "Turn away!" they cried to them, "Unclean! depart, depart, do not touch!" When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, "They shall not live here anymore."

4:16  The Lord himself has scattered them; he will no more regard them. They did not respect the priests, they did not favor the elders.

4:17  Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

4:18  They hunt our steps, so that we can't go in our streets. Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end has come.

4:19  Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky. They chased 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 can live among the nations."

4:21  Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwell in the land of Uz. The cup shall pass through to you also; you will get drunk, and shall make yourself naked.

4:22  The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion; he will no more carry you away into captivity. He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom; he will uncover your sins.

Chapter 5

5:1  Remember, Lord, what has come on us. Look, and see our disgrace.

5:2  Our inheritance is turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.

5:3  We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are like widows.

5:4  We have to pay for a drink of water; our wood is sold to us.

5:5  Our pursuers are on our necks; we are weary, and have no rest.

5:6  We have submitted to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians, to get enough bread.

5:7  Our fathers sinned, and are no more; we have borne their iniquities.

5:8  Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.

5:9  We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in 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, the virgins in the cities of Judah.

5:12  Princes were hanged by their hands; elders were shown no respect.

5:13  The young men grind at the mill; the boys stagger under loads of wood.

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

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

5:16  The crown is fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!

5:17  For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes grow dim.

5:18  For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate; the foxes walk on it.

5:19  You, Lord, abide forever; your throne is from generation to generation.

5:20  Why do you keep on forgetting us? Why do you forsake us so long?

5:21  Restore us to you, Lord, and we shall be restored; renew our days as in former times,

5:22  unless you have completely rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.