Lamentations 4:1-16 ▼

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!

11 YHWH has fulfilled His fury, He has poured out the burning of His nose; He has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured her foundations.

12 The kings of the earth did not believe and all those dwelling in the world, that the adversary would come and the enemy into the gates of Jerusalem,

13 for the sins of her prophets, the iniquities of her priests, those pouring in her midst the blood of the righteous,

14 They wandered blind in the streets, they have defiled themselves with the blood, that none would be able to touch their garments.

15 “Turn away! Unclean!” They called out to them. “Turn away! Turn away, do not touch us!” So they fled and wandered, they said among the nations, “They shall not continue to sojourn!”

16 The face of YHWH has scattered them; He shall not continue to look on them; the faces of the priests they do not lift up, and to the elders they do not show favor.