1Chapter
How Lonely Sits the City
1How lonely sits the city
that was full of people!
How like a widow has she become,
she who was great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces
has become a slave.
2She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.
3Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.
4The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the festival; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her virgins have been afflicted, and she herself suffers bitterly.
5Her foes have become the head; her enemies prosper, because the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.
6From the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer.
7Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was none to help her, her foes gloated over her; they mocked at her downfall.
8Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away.
9Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; therefore her fall is terrible; she has no comforter. “O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!”
10The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation.
11All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. “Look, O Lord, and see, for I am despised.”
12“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.
13“From on high he sent fire; into my bones he made it descend; he spread a net for my feet; he turned me back; he has left me stunned, faint all the day long.
14“My transgressions were bound into a yoke; by his hand they were fastened together; they were set upon my neck; he caused my strength to fail; the Lord gave me into the hands of those whom I cannot withstand.
15“The Lord rejected all my mighty men in my midst; he summoned an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.
16“For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.”
17Zion stretches out her hands, but there is none to comfort her; the Lord has commanded against Jacob that his neighbors should be his foes; Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them.
18“The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but hear, all you peoples, and see my suffering; my young women and my young men have gone into captivity.
19“I called to my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and elders perished in the city, while they sought food to revive their strength.
20“Look, O Lord, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death.
21“They heard my groaning, yet there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it. You have brought the day you announced; now let them be as I am.
22“Let all their evildoing come before you, and deal with them as you have dealt with me because of all my transgressions; for my groans are many, and my heart is faint.”
2She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.
3Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.
4The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the festival; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her virgins have been afflicted, and she herself suffers bitterly.
5Her foes have become the head; her enemies prosper, because the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.
6From the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer.
7Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was none to help her, her foes gloated over her; they mocked at her downfall.
8Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away.
9Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; therefore her fall is terrible; she has no comforter. “O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!”
10The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation.
11All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. “Look, O Lord, and see, for I am despised.”
12“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.
13“From on high he sent fire; into my bones he made it descend; he spread a net for my feet; he turned me back; he has left me stunned, faint all the day long.
14“My transgressions were bound into a yoke; by his hand they were fastened together; they were set upon my neck; he caused my strength to fail; the Lord gave me into the hands of those whom I cannot withstand.
15“The Lord rejected all my mighty men in my midst; he summoned an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.
16“For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.”
17Zion stretches out her hands, but there is none to comfort her; the Lord has commanded against Jacob that his neighbors should be his foes; Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them.
18“The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but hear, all you peoples, and see my suffering; my young women and my young men have gone into captivity.
19“I called to my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and elders perished in the city, while they sought food to revive their strength.
20“Look, O Lord, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death.
21“They heard my groaning, yet there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it. You have brought the day you announced; now let them be as I am.
22“Let all their evildoing come before you, and deal with them as you have dealt with me because of all my transgressions; for my groans are many, and my heart is faint.”
2Chapter
The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity
1How the Lord in his anger
has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!
He has cast down from heaven to earth
the splendor of Israel;
he has not remembered his footstool
in the day of his anger.
2The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers.
3He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn from them his right hand in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around.
4He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes in the tent of the daughter of Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire.
5The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6He has laid waste his booth like a garden, laid in ruins his meeting place; the Lord has made Zion forget festival and Sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they raised a clamor in the house of the Lord as on the day of festival.
8The Lord determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring line; he did not restrain his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languished together.
9Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord.
10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
11My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city.
12They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers' bosom.
13What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is vast as the sea; who can heal you?
14Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.
15All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
16All your enemies rail against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: “We have swallowed her! Ah, this is the day we longed for; now we have it; we see it!”
17The Lord has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes.
18Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!
19“Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the night watches! Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.”
20Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity.
22You summoned as if to a festival day my terrors on every side, and on the day of the anger of the Lord no one escaped or survived; those whom I held and raised my enemy destroyed.
2The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers.
3He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn from them his right hand in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around.
4He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes in the tent of the daughter of Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire.
5The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all its palaces; he has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6He has laid waste his booth like a garden, laid in ruins his meeting place; the Lord has made Zion forget festival and Sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they raised a clamor in the house of the Lord as on the day of festival.
8The Lord determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring line; he did not restrain his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languished together.
9Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord.
10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
11My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city.
12They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers' bosom.
13What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is vast as the sea; who can heal you?
14Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.
15All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
16All your enemies rail against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: “We have swallowed her! Ah, this is the day we longed for; now we have it; we see it!”
17The Lord has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes.
18Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!
19“Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the night watches! Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.”
20Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity.
22You summoned as if to a festival day my terrors on every side, and on the day of the anger of the Lord no one escaped or survived; those whom I held and raised my enemy destroyed.
3Chapter
Great Is Your Faithfulness
1I am the man who has seen affliction
under the rod of his wrath;
2he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;
3surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
4He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones;
5he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
6he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
7He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy;
8though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;
9he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.
10He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;
11he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate;
12he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
13He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver;
14I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.
15He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.
16He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;
17my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;
18so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”
19Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
20My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
21But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
22The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
23they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
25The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
26It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
27It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him;
29let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope;
30let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults.
31For the Lord will not cast off forever,
32but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.
34To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth,
35to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High,
36to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve.
37Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?
38Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
39Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?
40Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!
41Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven:
42“We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.
43“You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity;
44you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.
45You have made us scum and garbage among the peoples.
46“All our enemies open their mouths against us;
47panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction;
48my eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49“My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite,
50until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees;
51my eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
52“I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause;
53they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me;
54water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’
55“I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit;
56you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’
57You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’
58“You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.
59You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord; judge my cause.
60You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.
61“You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me.
62The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long.
63Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts.
64“You will repay them, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65You will give them dullness of heart; your curse will be on them.
66You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O Lord.”
2he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;
3surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
4He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones;
5he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
6he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
7He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy;
8though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;
9he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.
10He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;
11he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate;
12he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
13He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver;
14I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.
15He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.
16He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;
17my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;
18so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”
19Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
20My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
21But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
22The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
23they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
25The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
26It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
27It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him;
29let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope;
30let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults.
31For the Lord will not cast off forever,
32but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.
34To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth,
35to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High,
36to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve.
37Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?
38Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
39Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?
40Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!
41Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven:
42“We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.
43“You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity;
44you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.
45You have made us scum and garbage among the peoples.
46“All our enemies open their mouths against us;
47panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction;
48my eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49“My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite,
50until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees;
51my eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
52“I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause;
53they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me;
54water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’
55“I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit;
56you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’
57You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’
58“You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.
59You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord; judge my cause.
60You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.
61“You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me.
62The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long.
63Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts.
64“You will repay them, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65You will give them dullness of heart; your curse will be on them.
66You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O Lord.”
4Chapter
The Holy Stones Lie Scattered
1How the gold has grown dim,
how the pure gold is changed!
The holy stones lie scattered
at the head of every street.
2The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter's hands!
3Even jackals offer the breast; they nurse their young; but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4The tongue of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives to them.
5Those who once feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.
6For the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her.
7Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than coral, the beauty of their form was like sapphire.
8Now their face is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood.
9Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of the fruits of the field.
10The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11The Lord gave full vent to his wrath; he poured out his hot anger, and he kindled a fire in Zion that consumed its foundations.
12The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem.
13This was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in the midst of her the blood of the righteous.
14They wandered, blind, through the streets; they were so defiled with blood that no one was able to touch their garments.
15“Away! Unclean!” people cried at them. “Away! Away! Do not touch!” So they became fugitives and wanderers; people said among the nations, “They shall stay with us no longer.”
16The Lord himself has scattered them; he will regard them no more; no honor was shown to the priests, no favor to the elders.
17Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; in our watching we watched for a nation which could not save.
18They dogged our steps so that we could not walk in our streets; our end drew near; our days were numbered, for our end had come.
19Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles in the heavens; they chased us on the mountains; they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
20The breath of our nostrils, the Lord's anointed, was captured in their pits, of whom we said, “Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.”
21Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz; but to you also the cup shall pass; you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.
22The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter of Zion, is accomplished; he will keep you in exile no longer; but your iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he will punish; he will uncover your sins.
2The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter's hands!
3Even jackals offer the breast; they nurse their young; but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4The tongue of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives to them.
5Those who once feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.
6For the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her.
7Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than coral, the beauty of their form was like sapphire.
8Now their face is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood.
9Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of the fruits of the field.
10The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11The Lord gave full vent to his wrath; he poured out his hot anger, and he kindled a fire in Zion that consumed its foundations.
12The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem.
13This was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in the midst of her the blood of the righteous.
14They wandered, blind, through the streets; they were so defiled with blood that no one was able to touch their garments.
15“Away! Unclean!” people cried at them. “Away! Away! Do not touch!” So they became fugitives and wanderers; people said among the nations, “They shall stay with us no longer.”
16The Lord himself has scattered them; he will regard them no more; no honor was shown to the priests, no favor to the elders.
17Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; in our watching we watched for a nation which could not save.
18They dogged our steps so that we could not walk in our streets; our end drew near; our days were numbered, for our end had come.
19Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles in the heavens; they chased us on the mountains; they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
20The breath of our nostrils, the Lord's anointed, was captured in their pits, of whom we said, “Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.”
21Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz; but to you also the cup shall pass; you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.
22The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter of Zion, is accomplished; he will keep you in exile no longer; but your iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he will punish; he will uncover your sins.
5Chapter
Restore Us to Yourself, O Lord
1Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
look, and see our disgrace!
2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.
3We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.
4We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.
5Our pursuers are at our necks; we are weary; we are given no rest.
6We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough.
7Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities.
8Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.
9We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.
10Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine.
11Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah.
12Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders.
13Young men are compelled to grind at the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood.
14The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music.
15The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning.
16The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!
17For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim,
18for Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.
19But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.
20Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days?
21Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old—
22unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.
2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.
3We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.
4We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.
5Our pursuers are at our necks; we are weary; we are given no rest.
6We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough.
7Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities.
8Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.
9We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.
10Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine.
11Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah.
12Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders.
13Young men are compelled to grind at the mill, and boys stagger under loads of wood.
14The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music.
15The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning.
16The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!
17For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim,
18for Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.
19But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.
20Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days?
21Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old—
22unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.
Study