1 How יהוה in His displeasure Has covered the daughter of Tsiyon with a cloud! He has cast down from the heavens to the earth The comeliness of Yisra’ĕl, And has not remembered His footstool in the day of His displeasure.
2 יהוה has swallowed up, without compassion, All the pastures of Ya‛aqoḇ. In His wrath He has thrown down The strongholds of the daughter of Yehuḏah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the reign and its rulers.
3 In the heat of displeasure He has cut off every horn of Yisra’ĕl. He has withdrawn His right hand from before the enemy. And He burns against Ya‛aqoḇ Like a flaming fire, consuming all around.
4 He has bent His bow like an enemy. He has set His right hand like an adversary. And He slays all who delighted the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Tsiyon, He has poured out His wrath like fire.
5 יהוה has been like an enemy. He has swallowed up Yisra’ĕl, He has swallowed up all her palaces, He has destroyed her strongholds. And He increases mourning and lamentation In the daughter of Yehuḏah.
6 He has demolished His booth like a garden, He has destroyed His place of meeting. יהוה has made the appointed times and Sabbaths To be forgotten in Tsiyon, And despises sovereign and priest In His raging displeasure.
7 יהוה has cast off His altar, He has rejected His set-apart place, He has delivered the walls of her palaces Into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in the House of יהוה As on the day of an appointed time.
8 יהוה has planned to destroy The wall of the daughter of Tsiyon. He has stretched out a line. He has not turned back His hand from destroying. And He has made the rampart and wall to lament; Together they have languished.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her sovereign and her rulers are among the gentiles. The Torah is no more, And her prophets have found no vision from יהוה.
10 The elders of the daughter of Tsiyon Sit on the ground, are silent. They have thrown dust on their heads, They have girded themselves with sackcloth. The maidens of Yerushalayim Have let their heads hang to the ground.
11 My eyes are spent with tears, My inward parts ferment, My bile has been poured on the ground Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, As children and the infants languish In the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” As they languish like the wounded In the streets of the city, As their life is poured out in their mothers’ bosom.
13 How shall I admonish you, To what shall I compare you, O daughter of Yerushalayim? To what shall I liken you to comfort you, O maiden daughter of Tsiyon? For your breach is as great as the sea. Who shall heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen Falsehood and folly for you, And have not shown you your crookedness, To turn back your captivity. But their visions for you Are false and misleading messages.
15 All who pass by have clapped their hands at you. They have whistled, And they shake their heads At the daughter of Yerushalayim, “Is this the city that is called ‘The perfection of loveliness, The joy of all the earth’?”
16 All your enemies have opened Their mouth against you; They have whistled and they gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! This is certainly the day we waited for; We have found it, we have seen it.”
17 יהוה has done what He planned, He has filled His word Which He commanded in days of old. He has torn down, without compassion, And He has let your enemy rejoice over you. He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried out to יהוה, “O wall of the daughter of Tsiyon, Let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no numbness, Let your eyes have no rest.
19 “Arise, cry out in the night, At the beginning of the watches, Pour out your heart like water Before the face of יהוה. Lift your hands toward Him For the life of your young children, Who languish from hunger At the head of every street.
20 “See, O יהוה, and look attentively To whom have You done thus. Should the women eat their offspring, Infants of a hand breadth? Should the priest and prophet be slain In the set-apart place of יהוה?
21 “Young and old lie on the ground in the streets. My maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your displeasure, You have slaughtered without compassion.
22 “Would You proclaim, as in a day of appointed time, The fears that surround me? And no one escaped or survived In the day of the displeasure of יהוה. Those whom I have nursed and brought up My enemy has destroyed.”