Lamentations 1:1-9 ▼

1 How lonely sits the city once full of people! She has become like a widow, she who was great among the nations; the princess of the provinces has become a slave!

2 She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; there is not unto her one giving comfort among all her lovers; all her companions have dealt treacherously with her, they have become to her as enemies.

3 Judah has gone into exile for affliction and from an abundance of labor; she dwells among the nations; she finds no rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of distress.

4 The paths to Zion are mourning no one is coming to the appointed feast, and all her gates are desolate; her priests are groaning, her virgins are grieving, and it is bitter for her.

5 Her adversaries have become as the head, and her enemies prosper; for YHWH has afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.

6 And it has departed from the Daughter of Zion—all her splendor; her princes have become like deer that find no pasture, and they flee without strength before the face of the pursuer.

7 Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and her wandering all her desirable things that were in days before. In the falling of her people into the hand of the enemy, there was no one giving help to her; the adversaries saw her; they have laughed at her destruction.

8 Jerusalem has sinned greatly; upon thus she has become as filth. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; even she herself groans and turns away.

9 Her uncleanness is on her skirts; she did not have in mind her end, and she went down stunningly; there was no one giving comfort to her. See, O YHWH, my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!