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!

1:2 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.

1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and

because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she

findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the

straits.

1:4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn

feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her

virgins are afflicted, and she [is] in bitterness.

1:5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the

LORD hath 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 beauty is departed:

her princes are become like harts [that] find no pasture, and

they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

1:7 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.

1:8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:

all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her

nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

1:9 Her filthiness [is] in her skirts; she remembereth not her

last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no

comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath

magnified [himself].

1:10 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.

1:11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their

pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and

consider; for I am become vile.

1:12 [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 the LORD hath afflicted [me] in the day of

his fierce anger.

1:13 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.

1:14 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, the Lord hath delivered me into [their]

hands, [from whom] I am not able to rise up.

1:15 The Lord 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: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of

Judah, [as] in a winepress.

1:16 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.

1:17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, [and there is] none to

comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, [that]

his adversaries [should be] round about him: Jerusalem is as a

menstruous woman among them.

1:18 The LORD 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.

1:19 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.

1:20 Behold, O LORD; 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.

1:21 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.

1:22 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.

2:1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud

in his anger, [and] cast down from heaven unto the earth the

beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day

of his anger!

2:2 The Lord 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 Judah; he hath brought [them] down to

the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes

thereof.

2:3 He hath cut off in [his] fierce anger all the horn of

Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the

enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, [which]

devoureth round about.

2:4 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 Zion: he poured out

his fury like fire.

2:5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he

hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong

holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and

lamentation.

2:6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as [if it

were of] a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the

assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths

to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation

of his anger the king and the priest.

2:7 The Lord 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

the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.

2:8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter

of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn

his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the

wall to lament; they languished together.

2:9 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 the LORD.

2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground,

[and] keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads;

they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of

Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

2:11 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.

2:12 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.

2:13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing

shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I

equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of

Zion? for thy breach [is] great like the sea: who can heal

thee?

2:14 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.

2:15 All that pass by clap [their] hands at thee; they hiss and

wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, [saying, Is] this

the city that [men] call The perfection of beauty, The joy of

the whole earth?

2:16 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].

2:17 The LORD 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.

2:18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of

Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give

thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

2:19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the

watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the

Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young

children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

2:20 Behold, O LORD, 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

the Lord?

2:21 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.

2:22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,

so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor

remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine

enemy consumed.

3:1 I [am] the man [that] hath seen affliction by the rod of his

wrath.

3:2 He hath led me, and brought [me into] darkness, but not

[into] light.

3:3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand [against

me] all the day.

3:4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my

bones.

3:5 He hath builded against me, and compassed [me] with gall and

travail.

3:6 He hath set me in dark places, as [they that be] dead of

old.

3:7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made

my chain heavy.

3:8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

3:9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my

paths crooked.

3:10 He [was] unto me [as] a bear lying in wait, [and as] a lion

in secret places.

3:11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he

hath made me desolate.

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

3:13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my

reins.

3:14 I was a derision to all my people; [and] their song all the

day.

3:15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken

with wormwood.

3:16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath

covered me with ashes.

3:17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat

prosperity.

3:18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the

LORD:

3:19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and

the gall.

3:20 My soul hath [them] still in remembrance, and is humbled in

me.

3:21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

3:22 [It is of] the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed,

because his compassions fail not.

3:23 [They are] new every morning: great [is] thy faithfulness.

3:24 The LORD [is] my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I

hope in him.

3:25 The LORD [is] good unto them that wait for him, to the soul

[that] seeketh him.

3:26 [It is] good that [a man] should both 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 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne

[it] upon him.

3:29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be

hope.

3:30 He giveth [his] cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled

full with reproach.

3:31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:

3:32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion

according to the multitude of his mercies.

3:33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children

of men.

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

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, the Lord approveth not.

3:37 Who [is] he [that] saith, and it cometh to pass, [when] the

Lord commandeth [it] not?

3:38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and

good?

3:39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the

punishment of his sins?

3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.

3:41 Let us lift up our heart with [our] hands unto God in the

heavens.

3:42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not

pardoned.

3:43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast

slain, thou hast not pitied.

3:44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that [our] prayer

should not pass through.

3:45 Thou hast made us [as] the offscouring and refuse in the

midst of the people.

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

3:47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and

destruction.

3:48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the

destruction of the daughter of my people.

3:49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any

intermission,

3:50 Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.

3:51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters

of my city.

3:52 Mine enemies chased me sore, 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 mine head; [then] I said, I am cut off.

3:55 I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon.

3:56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my

breathing, at my cry.

3:57 Thou drewest near in the day [that] I called upon thee:

thou saidst, Fear not.

3:58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast

redeemed my life.

3:59 O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.

3:60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance [and] all their

imaginations against me.

3:61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O LORD, [and] all their

imaginations against me;

3:62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device

against me all the day.

3:63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I [am]

their musick.

3:64 Render unto them a recompence, O LORD, according to the

work of their hands.

3:65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.

3:66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens

of the LORD.

4:1 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.

4:2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are

they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the

potter!

4:3 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.

4:4 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.

4:5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:

they that were brought up 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, and no hands stayed on her.

4:7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than

milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing

[was] of sapphire:

4:8 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.

4:9 [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.

4:10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own

children: they were their meat in the destruction of the

daughter of my people.

4:11 The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his

fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath

devoured the foundations thereof.

4:12 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 Jerusalem.

4:13 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,

4:14 They have wandered [as] blind [men] in the streets, they

have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not

touch their garments.

4:15 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].

4:16 The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more

regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests,

they favoured not the elders.

4:17 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].

4:18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our

end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

4:19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:

they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in

the wilderness.

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 heathen.

4:21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in

the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou

shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.

4:22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O

daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into

captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he

will discover thy sins.

5:1 Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold

our reproach.

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

aliens.

5:3 We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers [are] as widows.

5:4 We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto

us.

5:5 Our necks [are] under persecution: we labour, [and] have no

rest.

5:6 We have given the hand [to] the Egyptians, [and to] the

Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

5:7 Our fathers have sinned, [and are] not; and we have borne

their iniquities.

5:8 Servants have ruled over us: [there is] none that doth

deliver [us] out of their hand.

5:9 We gat our bread with [the peril of] our lives because of

the sword of the wilderness.

5:10 Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible

famine.

5:11 They ravished the women in Zion, [and] the maids in the

cities of Judah.

5:12 Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders

were not honoured.

5:13 They took the young men to grind, and the children fell

under the wood.

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

their musick.

5:15 The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into

mourning.

5:16 The crown is fallen [from] our head: woe unto us, that we

have sinned!

5:17 For this our heart is faint; for these [things] our eyes

are dim.

5:18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the

foxes walk upon it.

5:19 Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from

generation to generation.

5:20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, [and] forsake us so

long time?

5:21 Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned;

renew our days as of old.

5:22 But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth

against us.

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