5. People who once ate the finest foods die starving in the streets;those raised in luxury are pawing through refuse for food.
6. My people have been punished even more than the inhabitants of Sodom,which met with a sudden downfall at the hands of God.
7. Our princes were undefiled and pure as snow,vigorous and strong, glowing with health.
8. Now they lie unknown in the streets, their faces blackened in death;their skin, dry as wood, has shrivelled on their bones.
9. Those who died in the war were better off than those who died later,who starved slowly to death, with no food to keep them alive.
10. The disaster that came to my people brought horror;loving mothers boiled their own children for food.
11. The Lord turned loose the full force of his fury;he lit a fire in Zion that burnt it to the ground.
12. No one anywhere, not even rulers of foreign nations,believed that any invader could enter Jerusalem's gates.
13. But it happened because her prophets sinned and her priests were guiltyof causing the death of innocent people.