Lamentations 4:1-10 ▼

1 How tarnished the gold has become, the finest gold debased! Sacred stones have been scattered at every street corner.

2 Though the precious people of Zion were like fine gold, how they are valued like clay vessels, the handiwork of a potter!

3 Even wild animals nurse, suckling their young; but the women of my people are cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness.

4 The nursing child's tongue cleaves to its palate from thirst. Young children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.

5 Those who enjoyed delicacies lie desolate in the streets. Those who were reared wearing purple scavenge in piles of trash.

6 The guilt of my cherished people surpasses the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, without a hand to help her.

7 Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk. Their bodies were more ruddy than rubies, their beards like the color of precious stones.

8 Now their faces are blacker than coal; they are unrecognized in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones; it has become dry like a stick.

9 Those who die by the sword are better off than those who die from starvation, who slowly waste away like those pierced through for lack of food from the fields.

10 With their own hands, compassionate women boil their own children— they become their food— when my beloved people were destroyed.