1
How Yahuah, in His anger, has covered the daughter of Tziyon with a cloud. He cast down from the heavens to the earth the beauty of Yisra’el, and did not remember His footstool in the day of His anger.
2
Yahuah swallowed up without compassion all the dwellings of Yaaqov. In His wrath He tore down the strongholds of the daughter of Yehudah. He brought down to the ground, He profaned the kingdom and its rulers.
3
In burning anger He cut off every horn of Yisra’el. He drew back His right hand from before the enemy. And He burned against Yaaqov like a flaming fire that devours all around.
4
He bent His bow like an enemy. He stood with His right hand like an adversary, and He killed all who were desirable to the eye in the tent of the daughter of Tziyon. He poured out His wrath like fire.
5
Yahuah became like an enemy. He swallowed up Yisra’el. He swallowed up all her palaces. He destroyed her strongholds and multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Yehudah.
6
He violently removed His sukkah like a garden shelter. He destroyed His appointed place. Yahuah caused appointed feast and Shabbat to be forgotten in Tziyon. And in the indignation of His anger He rejected king and kohen.
7
Yahuah rejected His altar. He abhorred His Sanctuary. He delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They raised a noise in the House of Yahuah as on the day of an appointed feast.
8
Yahuah determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Tziyon. He stretched out the measuring line. He did not withdraw His hand from swallowing up. He caused rampart and wall to mourn; together they languished.
9
Her gates have sunk into the earth. He destroyed and shattered her bars. Her king and her rulers are among the nations. There is no Torah, and her prophets find no vision from Yahuah.
10
The elders of the daughter of Tziyon sit upon the ground in silence. They cast dust upon their heads. They gird themselves with sackcloth. The maidens of Yerushalayim bow their heads to the ground.
11
My eyes are spent with tears. My inward parts are troubled. My liver is poured out upon the earth because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infant and nursing child faint in the streets of the city.
12
They say to their mothers, “Where are grain and wine?” As they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their being is poured out upon the bosom of their mothers.
13
What shall I testify to you? What shall I compare to you, O daughter of Yerushalayim? What shall I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Tziyon? For your breach is great like the sea. Who can heal you?
14
Your prophets saw for you empty and deceptive visions. They did not uncover your crookedness to turn back your captivity, but they saw for you burdens of emptiness and banishment.
15
All who pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Yerushalayim: “Is this the city they called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
16
All your enemies open their mouth against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up. Surely this is the day we waited for. We have found it. We have seen it.”
17
Yahuah has done what He purposed. He fulfilled His Word which He commanded from days of old. He tore down without compassion. He caused the enemy to rejoice over you. He exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18
Their heart cried out to Yahuah: “O wall of the daughter of Tziyon, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no rest. Let the pupil of your eye not cease.
19
Arise. Cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches. Pour out your heart like water before the face of Yahuah. Lift your hands toward Him for the being of your little ones, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.”
20
See, Yahuah, and consider: To whom have You dealt thus? Should women eat their own fruit, the children they tenderly carried? Should kohen and prophet be killed in the Sanctuary of Yahuah?
21
Young and old lie upon the ground in the streets. My maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword. You killed them in the day of Your anger. You slaughtered without compassion.
22
You called, as on the day of an appointed feast, my terrors from all around. And in the day of the anger of Yahuah there was none who escaped or survived. Those whom I carried and raised, my enemy consumed.