Lamentations

How the gold dims, the good gold is changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

The precious sons of Zion are weighed against pure gold. How they are counted as earthen vessels, the work of a potter's hand!

Even the jackals draw out the breast; they suckle their young. [But] the daughter of my people [is] cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

The tongue of the nursling cleaves to his palate in thirst. The young children ask bread, but there is no breaking for them.

Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those reared on scarlet embrace dunghills.

And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is heaped more than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as [in] a moment, and no hands were spun on her.

Her Nazarites [were] purer than snow, whiter than milk; they [were] redder [of] bone than corals; their cuttings [as azure-blue], as lapis lazuli.

Their appearance [is] darker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it is dried up, it has become like wood.

Better [are] the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger, those who flow away, pierced because the produce of my fields [failed].

The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became food to them in the ruin of the daughter of my people.

Jehovah has fulfilled His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger and has kindled a fire in Zion; and it has devoured its foundations.

The kings of the earth and all the world's inhabitants would not have believed that the foe and the hater would go into the gates of Jerusalem.

Because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, shedding the blood of the righteous in her midst,

they reeled blind in the streets. They are defiled with blood, so that not [any] are able to touch their garments.

They cried out to them, Depart! Unclean! Depart, depart! Touch not! Indeed they fled and reeled. They said among the nations, They will not continue to live there.

The face of Jehovah has shared them out; He will not continue to look on them. They did not lift up the face of the priests, they did not favor the elders.

While we are, our eyes fail for our vain help. In our watching, we have watched for a nation; it does not save.

They hunted our steps from going in our open places. Our end came near, our days were fulfilled, for our end had come.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed [of] Jehovah, was captured in their pits; of whom we said, In his shadow we will live among the nations.

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, living in the land of Uz, The cup also shall pass through to you; you shall be drunken and stripped naked.

Your perversity [is] complete, daughter of Zion; He will not continue to exile you. He will visit your perversity, daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.