Distress of the Siege Described

1How dark the gold has become,
         How the pure gold has changed!
         The sacred stones are poured out
         At the corner of every street.

2The precious sons of Zion,
         Weighed against fine gold,
         How they are regarded as earthen jars,
         The work of a potter’s hands!

3Even jackals offer the breast,
         They nurse their young;
         But the daughter of my people has become cruel
         Like ostriches in the wilderness.

4The tongue of the infant cleaves
         To the roof of its mouth because of thirst;
         The little ones ask for bread,
         But no one breaks it for them.

5Those who ate delicacies
         Are desolate in the streets;
         Those reared in purple
         Embrace ash pits.

6For the iniquity of the daughter of my people
         Is greater than the sin of Sodom,
         Which was overthrown as in a moment,
         And no hands were turned toward her.

7Her consecrated ones were purer than snow,
         They were whiter than milk;
         They were more ruddy in body than corals,
         Their polishing was like lapis lazuli.

8Their appearance is blacker than soot,
         They are not recognized in the streets;
         Their skin is shriveled on their bones,
         It is withered, it has become like wood.

9Better are those slain with the sword
         Than those slain with hunger;
         For they pine away, being stricken
         For lack of the fruits of the field.

10The hands of compassionate women
         Boiled their own children;
         They became food for them
         Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

11The LORD has accomplished His wrath,
         He has poured out His fierce anger;
         And He has kindled a fire in Zion
         Which has consumed its foundations.

12The kings of the earth did not believe,
         Nor did any of the inhabitants of the world,
         That the adversary and the enemy
         Could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

13Because of the sins of her prophets
         And the iniquities of her priests,
         Who have shed in her midst
         The blood of the righteous;

14They wandered, blind, in the streets;
         They were defiled with blood
         So that no one could touch their garments.

15“Depart! Unclean!” they cried of themselves.
         “Depart, depart, do not touch!”
         So they fled and wandered;
         Men among the nations said,
         “They shall not continue to dwell with us.”

16The presence of the LORD has scattered them,
         He will not continue to regard them;
         They did not honor the priests,
         They did not favor the elders.

17Yet our eyes failed,
         Looking for help was useless;
         In our watching we have watched
         For a nation that could not save.

18They hunted our steps
         So that we could not walk in our streets;
         Our end drew near,
         Our days were finished
         For our end had come.

19Our pursuers were swifter
         Than the eagles of the sky;
         They chased us on the mountains,
         They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness.

20The breath of our nostrils, the LORD’S anointed,
         Was captured in their pits,
         Of whom we had said, “Under his shadow
         We shall live among the nations.”

21Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
         Who dwells in the land of Uz;
         But the cup will come around to you as well,
         You will become drunk and make yourself naked.

22The punishment of your iniquity has been completed, O daughter of Zion;
         He will exile you no longer.
         But He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom;
         He will expose your sins!

NASB ©1995

American Standard Version
How is the gold become dim! how is the most pure gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Aleph. How is the gold become dim, the finest colour is changed, the stones of the sanctuary are scattered in the top of every street?

Darby Bible Translation
How is the gold become dim! the most pure gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary poured out at the top of all the streets!

English Revised Version
How is the gold become dim! how is the most pure gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the top of every street.

Webster's Bible Translation
How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

World English Bible
How is the gold become dim! [how] is the most pure gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

Young's Literal Translation
How is the gold become dim, Changed the best -- the pure gold? Poured out are stones of the sanctuary At the head of all out-places.A Message from God for Thee
Our two messages we will try to deliver in their order; we shall then want your attention and patience for a minute while we answer the question--Why the difference? and then we will press upon each character the force of the message, that each may be led to believe what is addressed to him. I. Our FIRST MESSAGE IS ONE OF COMFORT. "The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity." 1. We find, at the outset, a joyous fact. Read it …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 8: 1863

1875-1877. Mrs. Way's Sewing --Class for Jewesses --Bible Flower Mission --George Clarice --Incidents in Home Work --The Lord's Day --Diary at Sea -- Letters of Cheer
Mrs. Way's sewing--class for Jewesses--Bible Flower Mission--George Clarice--Incidents in home work--The Lord's Day--Diary at sea-- Letters of cheer from Canada. The Home of Industry has been already likened to the Pool of Bethesda with its fine porches. Many sights there have been peculiar to itself, and in no instance has this in past years been more remarkable, than in the meeting for Jewesses, which has been carried on ever since the year 1870. From fifty to seventy daughters of Israel are gathered …
Clara M. S. Lowe—God's Answers

The Children of the Poor.
THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR. The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.--LAMENTATIONS iv., 4. The writer of these words bewailed a state of War and Captivity--a state of things in which the great relations of human life are broken up and desecrated. But it is strange to find that the most flourishing forms of civilization involve conditions very similar to this. For, if any man will push beyond the circle of his daily associations, and enter the regions of the abject poor, he will …
E. H. Chapin—Humanity in the City

It Will be Attempted to Give a Complete List of his Writings In
chronological order; those included in this volume will be marked with an asterisk and enumerated in this place without remark. The figures prefixed indicate the probable date. (1) 318: *Two books contra Gentes,' viz. c. Gent. and De Incarn. (2) 321-2: *Depositio Arii (on its authorship, see Introd.) (3) 328-373: *Festal Letters. (4) 328-335? *Ecthesis or Expositio Fidei. (5) Id.? *In Illud Omnia, etc. (6) 339: *Encyclica ad Episcopos ecclesiæ catholicæ. (7) 343: *Sardican Letters (46, …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Sermons of St. Bernard on the Passing of Malachy
Sermon I (November 2, 1148.)[1005] 1. A certain abundant blessing, dearly beloved, has been sent by the counsel of heaven to you this day; and if it were not faithfully divided, you would suffer loss, and I, to whom of a surety this office seems to have been committed, would incur danger. I fear therefore your loss, I fear my own damnation,[1006] if perchance it be said, The young children ask bread, and no man offereth it unto them.[1007] For I know how necessary for you is the consolation which …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

The Great Shepherd
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. I t is not easy for those, whose habits of life are insensibly formed by the customs of modern times, to conceive any adequate idea of the pastoral life, as obtained in the eastern countries, before that simplicity of manners, which characterized the early ages, was corrupted, by the artificial and false refinements of luxury. Wealth, in those …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Holy Spirit and the Incarnation of the Word. ...
The Holy Spirit and the Incarnation of the Word. We have seen how Justin declared that it was not permissible to regard "the Spirit" and "the Power" that came upon the Virgin as any other than the Word of God Himself. And we also noted in passing that Theophilus of Antioch spoke of the Word as being "Spirit of God" and "Power of the Highest," the second of which designations comes from Luke i. 35. We have now to ask whether the language of Irenæus corresponds with this interpretation and makes …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

That the Ruler Relax not his Care for the Things that are Within in his Occupation among the Things that are Without, nor Neglect to Provide
The ruler should not relax his care for the things that are within in his occupation among the things that are without, nor neglect to provide for the things that are without in his solicitude for the things that are within; lest either, given up to the things that are without, he fall away from his inmost concerns, or, occupied only with the things that are within bestow not on his neighbours outside himself what he owes them. For it is often the case that some, as if forgetting that they have …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

What Messiah did the Jews Expect?
1. The most important point here is to keep in mind the organic unity of the Old Testament. Its predictions are not isolated, but features of one grand prophetic picture; its ritual and institutions parts of one great system; its history, not loosely connected events, but an organic development tending towards a definite end. Viewed in its innermost substance, the history of the Old Testament is not different from its typical institutions, nor yet these two from its predictions. The idea, underlying …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Upbringing of Jewish Children
The tenderness of the bond which united Jewish parents to their children appears even in the multiplicity and pictorialness of the expressions by which the various stages of child-life are designated in the Hebrew. Besides such general words as "ben" and "bath"--"son" and "daughter"--we find no fewer than nine different terms, each depicting a fresh stage of life. The first of these simply designates the babe as the newly--"born"--the "jeled," or, in the feminine, "jaldah"--as in Exodus 2:3, 6, 8. …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

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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