How Lonely Sits the City

¹How lonely sits the city

that was full of people!

How like a widow has she become,

she who was great among the nations!

She who was a princess among the provinces

has become a slave.

²She weeps bitterly in the night,

with tears on her cheeks;

among all her lovers

she has none to comfort her;

all her friends have dealt treacherously with her;

they have become her enemies.

³Judah has gone into exile because of affliction

and hard servitude;

she dwells now among the nations,

but finds no resting place;

her pursuers have all overtaken her

in the midst of her distress.1

⁴The roads to Zion mourn,

for none come to the festival;

all her gates are desolate;

her priests groan;

her virgins have been afflicted,2

and she herself suffers bitterly.

⁵Her foes have become the head;

her enemies prosper,

because the Lord has afflicted her

for the multitude of her transgressions;

her children have gone away,

captives before the foe.

⁶From the daughter of Zion

all her majesty has departed.

Her princes have become like deer

that find no pasture;

they fled without strength

before the pursuer.

⁷Jerusalem remembers

in the days of her affliction and wandering

all the precious things

that were hers from days of old.

When her people fell into the hand of the foe,

and there was none to help her,

her foes gloated over her;

they mocked at her downfall.

⁸Jerusalem sinned grievously;

therefore she became filthy;

all who honored her despise her,

for they have seen her nakedness;

she herself groans

and turns her face away.

⁹Her uncleanness was in her skirts;

she took no thought of her future;3

therefore her fall is terrible;

she has no comforter.

“O Lord, behold my affliction,

for the enemy has triumphed!”

¹⁰The enemy has stretched out his hands

over all her precious things;

for she has seen the nations

enter her sanctuary,

those whom you forbade

to enter your congregation.

¹¹All her people groan

as they search for bread;

they trade their treasures for food

to revive their strength.

“Look, O Lord, and see,

for I am despised.”

¹²“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?

Look and see

if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,

which was brought upon me,

which the Lord inflicted

on the day of his fierce anger.

¹³“From on high he sent fire;

into my bones4 he made it descend;

he spread a net for my feet;

he turned me back;

he has left me stunned,

faint all the day long.

¹⁴“My transgressions were bound5 into a yoke;

by his hand they were fastened together;

they were set upon my neck;

he caused my strength to fail;

the Lord gave me into the hands

of those whom I cannot withstand.

¹⁵“The Lord rejected

all my mighty men in my midst;

he summoned an assembly against me

to crush my young men;

the Lord has trodden as in a winepress

the virgin daughter of Judah.

¹⁶“For these things I weep;

my eyes flow with tears;

for a comforter is far from me,

one to revive my spirit;

my children are desolate,

for the enemy has prevailed.”

¹⁷Zion stretches out her hands,

but there is none to comfort her;

the Lord has commanded against Jacob

that his neighbors should be his foes;

Jerusalem has become

a filthy thing among them.

¹⁸“The Lord is in the right,

for I have rebelled against his word;

but hear, all you peoples,

and see my suffering;

my young women and my young men

have gone into captivity.

¹⁹“I called to my lovers,

but they deceived me;

my priests and elders

perished in the city,

while they sought food

to revive their strength.

²⁰“Look, O Lord, for I am in distress;

my stomach churns;

my heart is wrung within me,

because I have been very rebellious.

In the street the sword bereaves;

in the house it is like death.

²¹“They heard6 my groaning,

yet there is no one to comfort me.

All my enemies have heard of my trouble;

they are glad that you have done it.

You have brought7 the day you announced;

now let them be as I am.

²²“Let all their evildoing come before you,

and deal with them

as you have dealt with me

because of all my transgressions;

for my groans are many,

and my heart is faint.”