Untitled Sermon (18)
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 10 viewsNotes
Transcript
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
Outline of Lamentations for Series:
Message 1 (Max F.):
Introduction to Lamentations
What is Lament?
Why does it matter?
2: Lamentations 1:1-22 (JB)
3: Lamentations 2:1-22 (MF)
4: Lamentations 3:1-66 (JB)
5: Lamentations 4:1-22 (MF)
6: Lamentations 5:1-22 (JB)
Final Message (Max F.):
Review
Gospel Applications
Individually
Corporately
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
The earliest claim to human authorship comes in the Greek translation, where the first verse explicitly attributes the book to the weeping prophet Jeremiah.4 In some Greek and Latin manuscripts attribution to Jeremiah is repeated at the beginning of chapter 5, as if that chapter needed additional comment. Chapter 5 is essentially a communal lament, with much of it “voiced” in first-person plural.
Dearman, J. A. (2002). Jeremiah and Lamentations (p. 426). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
sorrow over the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. and the humiliation of Judah’s population.1 Individual poems within the book may have been compiled soon after the destruction of the city or anytime between that date and the rebuilding of the temple in 520–515 b.c.
Dearman, J. A. (2002). Jeremiah and Lamentations (p. 425). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
There are no a priori objections to the view that Jeremiah composed the later laments in Egypt, or that they were all written by some exile in Babylonia. Yet the impression created by the laments as a whole is that they were composed in or near the ruins of Jerusalem itself. If we could answer the question of their purpose with certainty (see section 7), it would be easier to suggest a definite answer to this question:
Ellison, H. L. (1986). Lamentations. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel (Vol. 6, p. 696). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
There is general agreement among more moderate writers—both conservative and liberal—that once we abandon the LXX tradition, arguments for and against authorship by Jeremiah are fairly evenly balanced. We do well, then, to respect the seal of anonymity impressed on the book by the Holy Spirit. The claim for authorship by Jeremiah seems to be mainly sentimental. Arguments from style show no more, as is borne out by the Lachish ostraca, than that on other grounds the laments fit the period we attribute them to. Theological similarities with Jeremiah were to be expected from anyone who accepted his teaching and that of the great prophets in general. In the commentary attention will be drawn to the few passages that are hard to attribute to Jeremiah. A special discussion of the authorship of chapter 3 will be found at the beginning of the commentary there.
Ellison, H. L. (1986). Lamentations. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel (Vol. 6, p. 696). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
See above, under setting of author...
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
The structure
The grief
The central verses of Lamentations 3 are pivotal
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
The book does have, however, clear subunits based on the five chapters. Each of the chapters is arranged in a recognizable pattern—that is, they are in poetry9—and each follows an aspect of the Semitic alphabet. Lamentations 1–4 are known as acrostics because the poetic verses are arranged in a pattern following the sequence of the twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet.10 The first word of each verse in chapters 1 and 2 begins with a different letter of the alphabet and follows the alphabetic sequence of twenty-two letters from beginning to end. That is, 1:1 and 2:1 begin with a word whose initial letter is aleph (א), and 1:22 and 2:22 begin with a word whose initial letter is taw (ת). Chapter 3 has sixty-six verses but follows the same acrostic pattern, in three-verse units.11 Chapter 4 follows the pattern outlined for chapters 1 and 2.12
Dearman, J. A. (2002). Jeremiah and Lamentations (p. 428). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
The book conveys pain, indeed agony, caused by divine punishment in response to human sin, which is hardly a popular topic these days
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 278). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
Scholars have long observed that Lam 3 is not only the numerical center of the book but the thematic and logical center as well. That is, the problems stated in chaps. 1 and 2 find at least a tentative solution in chap. 3, which in turn affects the contents of chaps. 4 and 5
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 307). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
Acrostic form peaks in chapter 3 and dwindles intensity to chapter 5:
It is quite possible that the separate yet integrated acrostics among the poems of Lamentations also help structure the book as a whole. Scholars have long observed that Lam 3 is not only the numerical center of the book but the thematic and logical center as well. That is, the problems stated in chaps. 1 and 2 find at least a tentative solution in chap. 3, which in turn affects the contents of chaps. 4 and 5 (see Westermann, 63–76, for a survey of opinions). Bo Johnson (ZAW 97 [1985] 62) argues that the individual acrostics in the book may create an acrostic structure for the whole book that coincides with the book’s message. He notes that chaps. 1 and 2 consist of twenty-two three-line segments whose first line begins with successive letters of the alphabet, that chap. 3 also consists of twenty-two three-line segments, but that each line begins with the appropriate letter of the alphabet, that chap. 4 consists of two-line segments that begin with the successive letters of the alphabet, and that chap. 5 has twenty-two segments of two lines each, none of which begins with the successive letter of the alphabet. Given this scheme, the book’s acrostic forms intensify from chap. 1 to chap. 3, for chap. 3 is the most acrostic of all the poems (65). After this midpoint of the book, the acrostic forms lessen in intensity in chap. 4, which has a series of two-line segments, then fade out completely as chap. 5 has twenty-two lines but no alphabetic succession.
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 307). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
See opening, general information about passage above
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
Outline of Lamentations for Series:
Message 1 (Max F.):
• Introduction to Lamentations
• What is Lament?
• Why does it matter?
2: Lamentations 1:1-22 (JB) - The LORD in righteousness has afflicted me. Lament begins with the righteous Lord and rebellious/sinful people.
3: Lamentations 2:1-22 (MF) - Pour out your heart before the Lord because of his doings.
4: Lamentations 3:1-66 (JB) - The LORD has brought his wrath upon him but though he brings grief, his compassion is unfailing. He will right injustice.
5: Lamentations 4:1-22 (MF) - What once was, no longer is.
6: Lamentations 5:1-22 (JB) - Remember us, Eternal Ruler!
Final Message (Max F.):
• Review
• Gospel Applications
• Individually
• Corporately
"This format focuses the reader's attention on the flow of the book's message by careful use of poetic form."
This poetic odyssey usually includes four key elements: (1) an address to God, (2) a complaint, (3) a request, and (4) an expression of trust and/or praise.7 1
7 7 Stacey Gleddiesmith, “My God, My God, Why? Understanding the Lament Psalms,” Reformed Worship, June 2010, www.reformedworship.org/article/june-2010/my-god-my-god-why.
1 Vroegop, M. (2019). Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (p. 29). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
As for individual laments, Gunkel lists four basic components: summons, complaint, petition, and assertion of confidence in the Lord (Introduction to Psalms, 152–80).
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 315). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
Westermann basically agrees with Gunkel’s categories, though he refines them into the following five segments: address (and introductory petition), lament proper, a turning toward God (confession of trust in the Lord), a petition, and a vow of praise (Praise and Lament in the Psalms, 170).
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 315). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
King James Version Chapter 1
For the LORD xhath afflicted her yfor the multitude of her transgressions:
King James Version Chapter 1
O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy khath magnified himself.
King James Version Chapter 1
See, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile.
King James Version Chapter 1
Wherewith the LORD rhath afflicted me sin the day of sshis fierce anger.
King James Version Chapter 1
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands
King James Version Chapter 1
15 The Lord hath ytrodden under foot all zmy mighty men in the midst of me:
King James Version Chapter 1
The LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob,
King James Version Chapter 1
18 fThe LORD is righteous
King James Version Chapter 1
20 Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress
King James Version Chapter 1
that thou hast done it:
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
Glaring truths:
- The Lord has brought this affliction because of the sins of his covenant people.
- The lament is not only because of spiritual, social problems, but there is real physical impact of the affliction.
- The same Lord who consumes is the One who comforts because of unfailing compassion.
- Lament is an expression of grief that leads you to hope in the Object of expression: the Lord.
- The grief of the youth being consumed is marked as the pinnacle of the extremity of the situation.
Key questions:
What does lament mean?
What occasioned the writing?
Pretty common concensus that this happened after the destruction/exile in 586 B.C. - destruction of Jerusalem and Temple.
What kind of genre is it?
poetical lament, lament & acrostic, a communal lament,
Shaped as a series of four acrostic poems and one concluding acrosticlike poem, the book utilizes older set literary forms to forge a new type of literature.
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 306). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
One of the uses of Lamentations later was for liturgical purposes - commemorations of the destruction of the Temple.
Hebrew Order of Books (thematic/festival and pre-exilic books):
The Hebrew order of books reflects at least two thematic concerns. First, it indicates a liturgical concern, since Lamentations was joined with four other books associated with festivals: Song of Songs (Passover), Ruth (Feast of Weeks), Ecclesiastes (Feast of Tabernacles), and Esther (Purim). These five books, called the Megilloth, were recited at their respective festivals, and were usually kept together in canonical arrangements, though they did not always appear in the same place in each canonical list. Second, in the MT, Lamentations introduces the exile in the Writings and then is followed by Esther and Daniel, both books that deal with the trials associated with exile. This exilic theme continues until Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles address the problems endemic to the return to the Promised Land that marked the end of the exile and the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s predictions (Jer 29:10–13). Thus, Lamentations stands at the head of a group of books dedicated to exploring matters crucial to living for the Lord under difficult, sometimes excruciating, circumstances. The book aids a proper understanding of why the exile occurred and how one may turn to the Lord in the aftermath and ensuing years of the exile.
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 305). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
The first four poems are acrostics, which means that each succeeding line or set of lines begins with the subsequent letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 306). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
As Hillers writes concerning the book’s acrostics, “Chapters 1 and 2 are of a relatively simple type, in which each stanza has three lines, and only the first line of each is made to conform to the alphabet, so that stanza one begins with aleph, stanza two with beth, and so on through the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter four is of the same type, but here each stanza has only two lines. Chapter three is more elaborate: each stanza has three lines, and all three lines are made to begin with the proper letter, so that there are three lines starting with aleph, three with beth, and so on.… Chapter five is not an acrostic, but has exactly twenty-two lines and thus conforms to the alphabet to a lesser degree.
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 306). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
The form and structure of Lamentations are among its most distinctive and creative features. Shaped as a series of four acrostic poems and one concluding acrosticlike poem, the book utilizes older set literary forms to forge a new type of literature
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 306). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
HELPFUL:
He correctly states that over time laments have come to be devalued in scholarship and in formal worship settings: “This devaluation of the lament does not directly stem from the interpreters of the texts themselves; it is rooted in a pre-understanding. It is thought inappropriate to lament before God; lamentation is not compatible with proper behavior toward God. Lament disturbs or detracts from a pious attitude toward God” (81). Of course, this approach to Scripture, which Westermann deplores, removes readers of Scripture from much of the Bible. It removes reality from the theological equation and leads to spiritual dishonesty or disillusionment. A restoration of the lament genre to common worship could have many good effects, but Westermann offers the most important one: laments allow hurting people to use the language of suffering to come directly to God (89–91). There is no need to recover, then report back to God how one felt. There can be a direct approach to the one who can help and a restoration of relationship.
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 316). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
Gottwald (Studies in the Book of Lamentations, 51) argued that at the heart of the theology of Lamentations lies a single question: Why did Israel suffer so greatly so soon after the reforms instituted by Josiah ca. 622 b.c.e.? (51). He concludes that this question is asked “at the point in Israel’s life where the tension between history and faith is, for the first time, most sharply posed” (51). How so? Because at this point in their history the people had been schooled by adherents of Deuteronomistic theology to expect that reform would bring blessing. Thus, when defeat and destruction followed reform, the people sought an explanation. Israel expresses its dismay in Lamentations by using themes of reversal that depict past glory and present pain and its hopes for the future by declaring that God can once again reverse their fortunes, this time in a positive direction (53–60). In this way the nation states its pain, its faith in God, its belief in meaningful history, and its belief in God’s lordship over history (62). Overall, then, the book participates in the great tradition of Israelite prophetic thought yet also unites the priestly concern for liturgy with the prophetic desire for covenantal faithfulness (114–19).
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 317). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
HELPFUL:
He thinks that Deuteronomistic theology is prevalent in Lamentations and draws particular attention to the links between Deut 28 and Lamentations (Studies in the Text and Theology, 234). He concludes, with Gottwald, that Deuteronomistic theology is one major strand in Lamentations theology, even though he thinks that the people had reason to expect the covenant curses, not the covenant blessings (see Deut 27–28).
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 318). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
THEOLOGICAL VALUE:
This analysis reveals that Lamentations utilizes texts on covenantal curses and blessings, prophetic warnings and exhortations, and psalmic reflections on Jerusalem’s fall to establish God’s righteousness and faithfulness, on the one hand, and on human sinfulness, contrition, puzzlement, legitimate questioning, patience, and worship, on the other.
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 317). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
KEY THEOLOGICAL THEMES:
To pull these and other thematic elements together, the following summary of the theology of Lamentations uses four centering themes: God and the people of God, God and Jerusalem, God and the nations, and God and prayer. From these categories a portrait of God in Lamentations will be drawn.
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 323). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
THEOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS:
Though further theological reflection will be offered in the Explanation sections of the commentary, it is appropriate to draw some conclusions about the book’s portrait of God at this point. From the preceding discussion it is clear that the Lord is righteous, just, powerful, kind, severe, compassionate, faithful, and willing to hear and answer prayer. There is no question that the Lord is a thorough, severe, and unstinting judge of thorough, ingrained, consistent sin. At the same time, it is plain that these characteristics are not the primary facets of God’s nature, for these are not constant actions derived from that character. God’s lovingkindness, faithfulness, and ruling power are the Lord’s ongoing traits, so the covenant people have hope for the future.
Garrett, D. (2004). Song of Songs, Lamentations (Vol. 23B, p. 329). Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
It would have been a commemoration of their suffering, a liturgy for commemoration of their suffering, a call to look to the Sovereign and Compassionate God.
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
Jerusalem's sin, the Lord's affliction, the writer's lamentation-the Lord's mercy
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations,
And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude:
She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts:
All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries
All her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her:
The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:
For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary,
Whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them:
He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:
He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
They are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall,
The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
Because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her:
The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:
Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
While they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled;
Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me:
All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:
Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger,
And cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
And remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
He hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
And he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
And slew all that were pleasant to the eye
In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds,
And hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion:
He hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
Therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more;
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
But have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?
Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
So that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor remained:
Those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!
The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:
The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:
The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:
They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:
Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger:
For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children:
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,
And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,
That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood,
So that men could not touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered,
They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them:
They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help:
In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets:
Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:
They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits,
Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity:
He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us:
Consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.
3 We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are under persecution:
We labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us:
There is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with the peril of our lives
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like an oven
Because of the terrible famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion,
And the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men to grind,
And the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim.
18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
The foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever;
Thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy:
Lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness.
Vroegop, M. (2019). Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (p. 26). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
Todd Billings, in his book Rejoicing in Lament, helps us understand this foundational point: “It is precisely out of trust that God is sovereign that the psalmist repeatedly brings laments and petitions to the Lord.… If the psalmists had already decided the verdict—that God is indeed unfaithful—they would not continue to offer their complaint.”2 Therefore, lament is rooted in what we believe. It is a prayer loaded with theology. Christians affirm that the world is broken, God is powerful, and he will be faithful. Therefore, lament stands in the gap between pain and promise.
Vroegop, M. (2019). Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (p. 26). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.
Vroegop, M. (2019). Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (p. 28). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
You might think lament is the opposite of praise. It isn’t. Instead, lament is a path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment.6
Vroegop, M. (2019). Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (p. 28). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.