5Her adversaries have become her masters,
         Her enemies prosper;
         For the LORD has caused her grief
         Because of the multitude of her transgressions;
         Her little ones have gone away
         As captives before the adversary.

6All her majesty
         Has departed from the daughter of Zion;
         Her princes have become like deer
         That have found no pasture;
         And they have fled without strength
         Before the pursuer.

7In the days of her affliction and homelessness
         Jerusalem remembers 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 ruin.

8Jerusalem sinned greatly,
         Therefore she has become an unclean thing.
         All who honored her despise her
         Because they have seen her nakedness;
         Even she herself groans and turns away.

9Her uncleanness was in her skirts;
         She did not consider her future.
         Therefore she has fallen astonishingly;
         She has no comforter.
         “See, O LORD, my affliction,
         For the enemy has magnified himself!”

10The adversary has stretched out his hand
         Over all her precious things,
         For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary,
         The ones whom You commanded
         That they should not enter into Your congregation.

11All her people groan seeking bread;
         They have given their precious things for food
         To restore their lives themselves.
         “See, O LORD, and look,
         For I am despised.”

12“Is it nothing to all you who pass this way?
         Look and see if there is any pain like my pain
         Which was severely dealt out to me,
         Which the LORD inflicted on the day of His fierce anger.

13“From on high He sent fire into my bones,
         And it prevailed over them.
         He has spread a net for my feet;
         He has turned me back;
         He has made me desolate,
         Faint all day long.

14“The yoke of my transgressions is bound;
         By His hand they are knit together.
         They have come upon my neck;
         He has made my strength fail.
         The Lord has given me into the hands
         Of those against whom I am not able to stand.

15“The Lord has rejected all my strong men
         In my midst;
         He has called an appointed time against me
         To crush my young men;
         The Lord has trodden as in a wine press
         The virgin daughter of Judah.

16“For these things I weep;
         My eyes run down with water;
         Because far from me is a comforter,
         One who restores my soul.
         My children are desolate
         Because the enemy has prevailed.”

17Zion stretches out her hands;
         There is no one to comfort her;
         The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob
         That the ones round about him should be his adversaries;
         Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

18“The LORD is righteous;
         For I have rebelled against His command;
         Hear now, all peoples,
         And behold my pain;
         My virgins and my young men
         Have gone into captivity.

19“I called to my lovers, but they deceived me;
         My priests and my elders perished in the city
         While they sought food to restore their strength themselves.

20“See, O LORD, for I am in distress;
         My spirit is greatly troubled;
         My heart is overturned within me,
         For I have been very rebellious.
         In the street the sword slays;
         In the house it is like death.

21“They have heard that I groan;
         There is no one to comfort me;
         All my enemies have heard of my calamity;
         They are glad that You have done it.
         Oh, that You would bring the day which You have proclaimed,
         That they may become like me.

22“Let all their wickedness come before You;
         And deal with them as You have dealt with me
         For all my transgressions;
         For my groans are many and my heart is faint.”

NASB ©1995

American Standard Version
Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; For Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.

Douay-Rheims Bible
He. Her adversaries are become her lords, her enemies are enriched: because the Lord hath spoken against her for the multitude of her iniquities: her children are led into captivity: before the face of the oppressor.

Darby Bible Translation
Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies prosper; for Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the adversary.

English Revised Version
Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.

Webster's Bible Translation
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.

World English Bible
Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.

Young's Literal Translation
Her adversaries have become chief, Her enemies have been at ease, For Jehovah hath afflicted her, For the abundance of her transgressions, Her infants have gone captive before the adversary.No Sorrow Like Messiah's Sorrow
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow! A lthough the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the law of Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophecies (Luke 24:44) , bear an harmonious testimony to MESSIAH ; it is not necessary to suppose that every single passage has an immediate and direct relation to Him. A method of exposition has frequently obtained [frequently been in vogue], of a fanciful and allegorical cast [contrivance], under the pretext …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

Epistle vi. To Narses, Patrician .
To Narses, Patrician [1305] . Gregory to Narses, &c. In describing loftily the sweetness of contemplation, you have renewed the groans of my fallen state, since I hear what I have lost inwardly while mounting outwardly, though undeserving, to the topmost height of rule. Know then that I am stricken with so great sorrow that I can scarcely speak; for the dark shades of grief block up the eyes of my soul. Whatever is beheld is sad, whatever is thought delightful appears to my heart lamentable. For …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

"Come unto Me, all Ye that Labour, and are Wearied," &C.
Matth. xi. 28.--"Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are wearied," &c. It is the great misery of Christians in this life, that they have such poor, narrow, and limited spirits, that are not fit to receive the truth of the gospel in its full comprehension; from whence manifold misapprehensions in judgment, and stumbling in practice proceed. The beauty and life of things consist in their entire union with one another, and in the conjunction of all their parts. Therefore it would not be a fit way …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Meditations for one that is Like to Die.
If thy sickness be like to increase unto death, then meditate on three things:--First, How graciously God dealeth with thee. Secondly, From what evils death will free thee. Thirdly, What good death will bring unto thee. The first sort of Meditations are, to consider God's favourable dealing with thee. 1. Meditate that God uses this chastisement of thy body but as a medicine to cure thy soul, by drawing thee, who art sick in sin, to come by repentance unto Christ, thy physician, to have thy soul healed …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Carried Captive into Babylon
In the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem," to besiege the city. 2 Kings 25:1. The outlook for Judah was hopeless. "Behold, I am against thee," the Lord Himself declared through Ezekiel. "I the Lord have drawn forth My sword out of his sheath" it shall not return any more. . . . Every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water." "I will pour out Mine indignation …
Ellen Gould White—The Story of Prophets and Kings

Concerning the Sacrament of Baptism
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to the riches of His mercy has at least preserved this one sacrament in His Church uninjured and uncontaminated by the devices of men, and has made it free to all nations and to men of every class. He has not suffered it to be overwhelmed with the foul and impious monstrosities of avarice and superstition; doubtless having this purpose, that He would have little children, incapable of avarice and superstition, to be initiated into …
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

Lamentations
The book familiarly known as the Lamentations consists of four elegies[1] (i., ii., iii., iv.) and a prayer (v.). The general theme of the elegies is the sorrow and desolation created by the destruction of Jerusalem[2] in 586 B.C.: the last poem (v.) is a prayer for deliverance from the long continued distress. The elegies are all alphabetic, and like most alphabetic poems (cf. Ps. cxix.) are marked by little continuity of thought. The first poem is a lament over Jerusalem, bereft, by the siege, …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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