1. How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become tributary!
2. She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.
3. Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest: all her persecutors overtook her within the straits.
4. The ways of Zion mourn, because no one come to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her priests sigh: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
5. Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies prosper; for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary.
6. All majesty has departed from the daughter of Zion: her princes have become like deer that find no pasture, they have gone without strength before the pursuer.
7. Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and no one helped her, The adversaries saw her, they mocked at her desolations.
8. Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she has become as an unclean thing; all who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
9. Her filthiness was in her skirts; she didn’t remember her latter end; therefore she has come down astoundingly; she has no comforter: “See, Yahweh, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.”
10. The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things: for she has seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.
11. All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul: “Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become abject.”
12. “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, with which Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13. “From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them; He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and faint all day long.