7. Her princes were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their appearance was of sapphire:
8. Their appearance is now blacker than coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered, it has become like a dry stick.
9. They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for lack of the fruits of the field.
10. The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children: they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11. The LORD has accomplished his fury; he has poured out his fierce anger, and has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured its foundations.
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; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the nations, They shall no more sojourn there.
16. The anger of the LORD has scattered them; he will no longer regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favored not the elders.
17. As for us, our eyes as yet failed, watching for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.