Lamentations 4:1-10 ▼

1 How the gold has grown dim, the pure gold has changed! The stones of holiness are poured forth at the head of every street.

2 The precious sons of Zion were weighed with fine gold. How they are esteemed as pots of clay, the work of the hands of a potter!

3 Even the jackals draw out the breast and suckle their young, but the daughter of my people is cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness.

4 The tongue of the sucking babe clings to the roof of its mouth in thirst; the little children ask for bread—there is no one dispersing it for them.

5 Those once eating delicacies are desolate in the streets; those being set firmly in scarlet embrace heaps of rubbish.

6 And the punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her.

7 Her princes were brighter than snow and whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in essence than rubies; their polishing was of sapphire.

8 Now their appearance is darker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones, it has grown dry and become like wood.

9 Better are those slain by the sword than those dying of hunger, who waste away from the piercing of produce the field.

10 The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became food for them in this destruction of the daughter of my people!