Lamentations 1:1-10 ▼

1 [ALEPH-BET] How she has sat alone, || The city abounding with people! She has been as a widow, || The mighty among nations! Princes among provinces, || She has become tributary!

2 She weeps severely in the night, || And her tear [is] on her cheeks, || There is no comforter for her out of all her lovers, || All her friends dealt treacherously by her, || They have been to her for enemies.

3 Removed has Judah because of affliction, || And because of the abundance of her service; She has dwelt among nations, || She has not found rest, || All her pursuers have overtaken her between the straits.

4 The ways of Zion are mourning, || Without any coming at the appointed time, || All her gates are desolate, her priests sigh, || Her virgins are afflicted—and she has bitterness.

5 Her adversaries have become chief, || Her enemies have been at ease, || For YHWH has afflicted her, || For the abundance of her transgressions, || Her infants have gone captive before the adversary.

6 And all her honor goes out from the daughter of Zion, || Her princes have been as harts—They have not found pasture, || And they go powerless before a pursuer.

7 Jerusalem has remembered || [In] the days of her affliction and her mournings, all her desirable things that were from the days of old, || In the falling of her people into the hand of an adversary, || And she has no helper; Adversaries have seen her, || They have laughed at her cessation.

8 A sin has Jerusalem sinned, || Therefore she has become impure, || All who honored her have esteemed her lightly, || For they have seen her nakedness, || Indeed, she herself has sighed and turns backward.

9 Her uncleanness [is] in her skirts, || She has not remembered her latter end, || And she comes down wonderfully, || There is no comforter for her. See, O YHWH, my affliction, || For an enemy has exerted himself.

10 His hand has spread out an adversary || On all her desirable things, || For she has seen—Nations have entered her sanctuary, || Concerning which You commanded, || “They do not come into the assembly to you.”