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Bible (Berean Standard)/Lamentations

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How Lonely Lies the City!

(2 Kings 24:10–17)

 * How lonely lies the city,
 * once so full of people!
 * She who was great among the nations
 * has become a widow.
 * The princess of the provinces
 * has become a slave.

 * She weeps aloud in the night,
 * with tears upon her cheeks.
 * Among all her lovers
 * there is no one to comfort her.
 * All her friends have betrayed her;
 * they have become her enemies.

 * Judah has gone into exile
 * under affliction and harsh slavery;
 * she dwells among the nations
 * but finds no place to rest.
 * All her pursuers have overtaken her
 * in the midst of her distress.

 * The roads to Zion mourn,
 * because no one comes to her appointed feasts.
 * All her gates are deserted;
 * her priests groan,
 * her maidens grieve,
 * and she herself is bitter with anguish.

 * Her foes have become her masters;
 * her enemies are at ease.
 * For the LORD has brought her grief
 * because of her many transgressions.
 * Her children have gone away
 * as captives before the enemy.

 * All the splendor has departed
 * from the Daughter of Zion.
 * Her princes are like deer
 * that find no pasture;
 * they lack the strength to flee
 * in the face of the hunter.

 * In the days of her affliction and wandering
 * Jerusalem remembers all the treasures
 * that were hers in days of old.
 * When her people fell into enemy hands
 * she received no help.
 * Her enemies looked upon her,
 * laughing at her downfall.

 * Jerusalem has sinned greatly;
 * therefore she has become an object of scorn.
 * All who honored her now despise her,
 * for they have seen her nakedness;
 * she herself groans and turns away.

 * Her uncleanness stains her skirts;
 * she did not consider her end.
 * Her downfall was astounding;
 * there was no one to comfort her.
 * Look, O LORD, on my affliction,
 * for the enemy has triumphed!

 * The adversary has seized
 * all her treasures.
 * For she has seen the nations
 * enter her sanctuary—
 * those You had forbidden
 * to enter Your assembly.

 * All her people groan
 * as they search for bread.
 * They have traded their treasures for food
 * to keep themselves alive.
 * Look, O LORD, and consider,
 * for I have become despised.

 * Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by?
 * Look around and see!
 * Is there any sorrow like mine,
 * which was inflicted on me,
 * which the LORD made me suffer
 * on the day of His fierce anger?

 * He sent fire from on high,
 * and it overpowered my bones.
 * He spread a net for my feet
 * and turned me back.
 * He made me desolate,
 * faint all the day long.

 * My transgressions are bound into a yoke,
 * knit together by His hand;
 * they are draped over my neck,
 * and the Lord has broken my strength.
 * He has delivered me into the hands
 * of those I cannot withstand.

 * The Lord has rejected
 * all the mighty men in my midst;
 * He has summoned an army against me
 * to crush my young warriors.
 * Like grapes in a winepress,
 * the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah.

 * For these things I weep;
 * my eyes flow with tears.
 * For there is no one nearby to comfort me,
 * no one to revive my soul.
 * My children are destitute
 * because the enemy has prevailed.

 * Zion stretches out her hands,
 * but there is no one to comfort her.
 * The LORD has decreed against Jacob
 * that his neighbors become his foes.
 * Jerusalem has become
 * an unclean thing among them.

 * The LORD is righteous,
 * for I have rebelled against His command.
 * Listen, all you people;
 * look upon my suffering.
 * My young men and maidens
 * have gone into captivity.

 * I called out to my lovers,
 * but they have betrayed me.
 * My priests and elders
 * perished in the city
 * while they searched for food
 * to keep themselves alive.

 * See, O LORD, how distressed I am!
 * I am churning within;
 * my heart is pounding within me,
 * for I have been most rebellious.
 * Outside, the sword bereaves;
 * inside, there is death.

 * People have heard my groaning,
 * but there is no one to comfort me.
 * All my enemies have heard of my trouble;
 * they are glad that You have caused it.
 * May You bring the day You have announced,
 * so that they may become like me.

 * Let all their wickedness 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.

God’s Anger over Jerusalem

 * How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion
 * with the cloud of His anger!
 * He has cast the glory of Israel
 * from heaven to earth.
 * He has abandoned His footstool
 * in the day of His anger.

 * Without pity the Lord has swallowed up
 * all the dwellings of Jacob.
 * In His wrath He has demolished
 * the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah.
 * He brought to the ground and defiled
 * her kingdom and its princes.

 * In fierce anger He has cut off
 * every horn of Israel
 * and withdrawn His right hand
 * at the approach of the enemy.
 * He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire
 * that consumes everything around it.

 * He has bent His bow like an enemy;
 * His right hand is positioned.
 * Like a foe He has killed
 * all who were pleasing to the eye;
 * He has poured out His wrath like fire
 * on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

 * The Lord is like an enemy;
 * He has swallowed up Israel.
 * He has swallowed up all her palaces
 * and destroyed her strongholds.
 * He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
 * for the Daughter of Judah.

 * He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth;
 * He has destroyed His place of meeting.
 * The LORD has made Zion forget
 * her appointed feasts and Sabbaths.
 * In His fierce anger
 * He has despised both king and priest.

 * The Lord has rejected His altar;
 * He has abandoned His sanctuary;
 * He has delivered the walls of her palaces
 * into the hand of the enemy.
 * They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD
 * as on the day of an appointed feast.

 * The LORD determined to destroy
 * the wall of the Daughter of Zion.
 * He stretched out a measuring line
 * and did not withdraw His hand from destroying.
 * He made the ramparts and walls lament;
 * together they waste away.

 * Her gates have sunk into the ground;
 * He has destroyed and shattered their bars.
 * Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations,
 * the law is no more,
 * and even her prophets
 * find no vision from the LORD.

 * The elders of the Daughter of Zion
 * sit on the ground in silence.
 * They have thrown dust on their heads
 * and put on sackcloth.
 * The young women of Jerusalem
 * have bowed their heads to the ground.

 * My eyes fail from weeping;
 * I am churning within.
 * My heart is poured out in grief
 * over the destruction of the daughter of my people,
 * because children and infants faint
 * in the streets of the city.

 * They cry out to their mothers:
 * “Where is the grain and wine?”
 * as they faint like the wounded
 * in the streets of the city,
 * as their lives fade away
 * in the arms of their mothers.

 * What can I say for you?
 * To what can I compare you,
 * O Daughter of Jerusalem?
 * To what can I liken you,
 * that I may console you,
 * O Virgin Daughter of Zion?
 * For your wound is as deep as the sea.
 * Who can ever heal you?

 * The visions of your prophets
 * were empty and deceptive;
 * they did not expose your guilt
 * to ward off your captivity.
 * The burdens they envisioned for you
 * were empty and misleading.

 * All who pass by
 * clap their hands at you in scorn.
 * They hiss and shake their heads
 * at the Daughter of Jerusalem:
 * “Is this the city that was called
 * the perfection of beauty,
 * the joy of all the earth?”

 * All your enemies
 * open their mouths against you.
 * They hiss and gnash their teeth,
 * saying, “We have swallowed her up.
 * This is the day for which we have waited.
 * We have lived to see it!”

 * The LORD has done what He planned;
 * He has accomplished His decree,
 * which He ordained in days of old;
 * He has overthrown you without pity.
 * He has let the enemy gloat over you
 * and exalted the horn of your foes.

 * The hearts of the people
 * cry out to the Lord.
 * O wall of the Daughter of Zion,
 * let your tears run down like a river
 * day and night.
 * Give yourself no relief,
 * and your eyes no rest.

 * Arise, cry out in the night
 * from the first watch of the night.
 * Pour out your heart like water
 * in the presence of the Lord.
 * Lift up your hands to Him
 * for the lives of your children
 * who are fainting from hunger
 * on the corner of every street.

 * Look, O LORD, and consider:
 * Whom have You ever treated like this?
 * Should women eat their offspring,
 * the infants they have nurtured?
 * Should priests and prophets be killed
 * in the sanctuary of the Lord?

 * Both young and old lie together
 * in the dust of the streets.
 * My young men and maidens
 * have fallen by the sword.
 * You have slain them in the day of Your anger;
 * You have slaughtered them without compassion.

 * You summoned my attackers on every side,
 * as for the day of an appointed feast.
 * In the day of the LORD’s anger
 * no one escaped or survived;
 * my enemy has destroyed
 * those I nurtured and reared.

The Prophet’s Afflictions

 * I am the man who has seen affliction
 * under the rod of God’s wrath.
 * He has driven me away and made me walk
 * in darkness instead of light.
 * Indeed, He keeps turning His hand
 * against me all day long.

 * He has worn away my flesh and skin;
 * He has shattered my bones.
 * He has besieged me and surrounded me
 * with bitterness and hardship.
 * He has made me dwell in darkness
 * like those dead for ages.

 * He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
 * He has weighed me down with chains.
 * Even when I cry out and plead for help,
 * He shuts out my prayer.
 * He has barred my ways with cut stones;
 * He has made my paths crooked.

 * He is a bear lying in wait,
 * a lion hiding in ambush.
 * He forced me off my path and tore me to pieces;
 * He left me without help.
 * He bent His bow
 * and set me as the target for His arrow.

 * He pierced my kidneys
 * with His arrows.
 * I am a laughingstock to all my people;
 * they mock me in song all day long.
 * He has filled me with bitterness;
 * He has intoxicated me with wormwood.

 * He has ground my teeth with gravel
 * and trampled me in the dust.
 * My soul has been deprived of peace;
 * I have forgotten what prosperity is.
 * So I say, “My strength has perished,
 * along with my hope from the LORD.”

The Prophet’s Hope

 * Remember my affliction and wandering,
 * the wormwood and the gall.
 * Surely my soul remembers
 * and is humbled within me.
 * Yet I call this to mind,
 * and therefore I have hope:

 * Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed,
 * for His mercies never fail.
 * They are new every morning;
 * great is Your faithfulness!
 * “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
 * “therefore I will hope in Him.”

 * The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
 * to the soul who seeks Him.
 * It is good to wait quietly
 * for the salvation of the LORD.
 * It is good for a man to bear the yoke
 * while he is still young.

 * Let him sit alone in silence,
 * for God has disciplined him.
 * Let him bury his face in the dust—
 * perhaps there is still hope.
 * Let him offer his cheek to the one who would strike him;
 * let him be filled with reproach.

 * For the Lord will not
 * cast us off forever.
 * Even if He causes grief, He will show compassion
 * according to His abundant loving devotion.
 * For He does not willingly afflict
 * or grieve the sons of men.

 * To crush underfoot
 * all the prisoners of the land,
 * to deny a man justice
 * before the Most High,
 * to subvert a man in his lawsuit—
 * of these the Lord does not approve.

God’s Justice

 * Who has spoken and it came to pass,
 * unless the Lord has ordained it?
 * Do not both adversity and good
 * come from the mouth of the Most High?
 * Why should any mortal man complain,
 * in view of his sins?

 * Let us examine and test our ways,
 * and turn back to the LORD.
 * Let us lift up our hearts and hands
 * to God in heaven:
 * “We have sinned and rebelled;
 * You have not forgiven.”

 * You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us;
 * You have killed without pity.
 * You have covered Yourself with a cloud
 * that no prayer can pass through.
 * You have made us scum and refuse
 * among the nations.

 * All our enemies
 * open their mouths against us.
 * Panic and pitfall have come upon us—
 * devastation and destruction.
 * Streams of tears flow from my eyes
 * over the destruction of the daughter of my people.

 * My eyes overflow unceasingly,
 * without relief,
 * until the LORD
 * looks down from heaven and sees.
 * My eyes bring grief to my soul
 * because of all the daughters of my city.

 * Without cause my enemies
 * hunted me like a bird.
 * They dropped me alive into a pit
 * and cast stones upon me.
 * The waters flowed over my head,
 * and I thought I was going to die.

 * I called on Your name, O LORD,
 * out of the depths of the Pit.
 * You heard my plea:
 * “Do not ignore my cry for relief.”
 * You drew near when I called on You;
 * You said, “Do not be afraid.”

 * You defend my cause, O Lord;
 * You redeem my life.
 * You have seen, O LORD, the wrong done to me;
 * vindicate my cause!
 * You have seen all their malice,
 * all their plots against me.

 * O LORD, You have heard their insults,
 * all their plots against me—
 * the slander and murmuring of my assailants
 * against me all day long.
 * When they sit and when they rise,
 * see how they mock me in song.

 * You will pay them back what they deserve, O LORD,
 * according to the work of their hands.
 * Put a veil of anguish over their hearts;
 * may Your curse be upon them!
 * You will pursue them in anger and exterminate them
 * from under Your heavens, O LORD.

The Distress of Zion

 * How the gold has become tarnished,
 * the pure gold has become dull!
 * The gems of the temple lie scattered
 * on every street corner.

 * How the precious sons of Zion,
 * once worth their weight in pure gold,
 * are now esteemed as jars of clay,
 * the work of a potter’s hands!

 * Even jackals offer their breasts
 * to nurse their young,
 * but the daughter of my people has become cruel,
 * like an ostrich in the wilderness.

 * The nursing infant’s tongue
 * clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth.
 * Little children beg for bread,
 * but no one gives them any.

 * Those who once ate delicacies
 * are destitute in the streets;
 * those brought up in crimson
 * huddle in ash heaps.

 * The punishment of the daughter of my people
 * is greater than that of Sodom,
 * which was overthrown in an instant
 * without a hand turned to help her.

 * Her dignitaries were brighter than snow,
 * whiter than milk;
 * their bodies were more ruddy than rubies,
 * their appearance like sapphires.

 * But now their appearance is blacker than soot;
 * they are not recognized in the streets.
 * Their skin has shriveled on their bones;
 * it has become as dry as a stick.

 * Those slain by the sword are better off
 * than those who die of hunger,
 * who waste away, pierced with pain
 * because the fields lack produce.

 * The hands of compassionate women
 * have cooked their own children,
 * who became their food
 * in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

 * The LORD has exhausted His wrath;
 * He has poured out His fierce anger;
 * He has kindled a fire in Zion,
 * and it has consumed her foundations.

 * The kings of the earth did not believe,
 * nor any people of the world,
 * that an enemy or a foe
 * could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

 * But this was for the sins of her prophets
 * and the guilt of her priests,
 * who shed the blood of the righteous
 * in her midst.

 * They wandered blind in the streets,
 * defiled by this blood,
 * so that no one dared
 * to touch their garments.

 * “Go away! Unclean!”
 * men shouted at them.
 * “Away, away! Do not touch us!”
 * So they fled and wandered.
 * Among the nations it was said,
 * “They can stay here no longer.”

 * The presence of the LORD has scattered them;
 * He regards them no more.
 * The priests are shown no honor;
 * the elders find no favor.

 * All the while our eyes were failing
 * as we looked in vain for help.
 * We watched from our towers
 * for a nation that could not save us.

 * They stalked our every step,
 * so that we could not walk in our streets.
 * Our end drew near, our time ran out,
 * for our end had come!

 * Those who chased us were swifter
 * than the eagles in the sky;
 * they pursued us over the mountains
 * and ambushed us in the wilderness.

 * The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life,
 * was captured in their pits.
 * We had said of him,
 * “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”

 * So rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Edom,
 * you who dwell in the land of Uz.
 * Yet the cup will pass to you as well;
 * you will get drunk and expose yourself.

 * O Daughter of Zion, your punishment is complete;
 * He will not prolong your exile.
 * But He will punish your iniquity, O Daughter of Edom;
 * He will expose your sins.

A Prayer for Restoration

 * Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us.
 * Look and see our disgrace!
 * Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
 * our houses to foreigners.
 * We have become fatherless orphans;
 * our mothers are widows.
 * We must buy the water we drink;
 * our wood comes at a price.
 * We are closely pursued;
 * we are weary and find no rest.

 * We submitted to Egypt and Assyria
 * to get enough bread.
 * Our fathers sinned and are no more,
 * but we bear their punishment.
 * Slaves rule over us;
 * there is no one to deliver us from their hands.
 * We get our bread at the risk of our lives
 * because of the sword in the wilderness.
 * Our skin is as hot as an oven
 * with fever from our hunger.

 * Women have been ravished in Zion,
 * virgins in the cities of Judah.
 * Princes have been hung up by their hands;
 * elders receive no respect.
 * Young men toil at millstones;
 * boys stagger under loads of wood.
 * The elders have left the city gate;
 * the young men have stopped their music.
 * Joy has left our hearts;
 * our dancing has turned to mourning.
 * The crown has fallen from our head.
 * Woe to us, for we have sinned!

 * Because of this, our hearts are faint;
 * because of these, our eyes grow dim—
 * because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
 * patrolled by foxes.

 * You, O LORD, reign forever;
 * Your throne endures from generation to generation.
 * Why have You forgotten us forever?
 * Why have You forsaken us for so long?
 * Restore us to Yourself, O LORD, so we may return;
 * renew our days as of old,
 * unless You have utterly rejected us
 * and remain angry with us beyond measure.

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title: Bible (Berean Standard)/Lamentations