Lamentations 4:1-10 ▼

1 [ALEPH-BET] How the gold has become dim, || Changed the best—the pure gold! Stones of the sanctuary are poured out || At the head of all out-places.

2 The precious sons of Zion, || Who are comparable with fine gold, || How they have been reckoned earthen bottles, || Work of the hands of a potter.

3 Even dragons have drawn out the breast, || They have suckled their young ones, || The daughter of my people has become cruel, || Like the ostriches in a wilderness.

4 The tongue of a suckling has cleaved to his palate with thirst, || Infants asked for bread, they have no dealer [of it] out.

5 Those eating of delicacies have been desolate in out-places, || Those supported on scarlet have embraced dunghills.

6 And greater is the iniquity of the daughter of my people, || Than the sin of Sodom, || That was overturned as [in] a moment, || And no hands were stayed on her.

7 Purer were her Nazarites than snow, || Whiter than milk, ruddier of body than rubies, || Of sapphire their form.

8 Their face has been darker than blackness, || They have not been known in out-places, || Their skin has cleaved to their bone, || It has withered—it has been as wood.

9 Better have been the pierced of a sword || Than the pierced of famine, || For these flow away, pierced through, || Without the increase of the field.

10 The hands of merciful women have boiled their own children, || They have been for food to them, || In the destruction of the daughter of my people.