THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS
King James Version
1 ¶ How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of
people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among
the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth
sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she
hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
they are become her enemies.
3
Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great
servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her
persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of
Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are
desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in
bitterness.
5
Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath
afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone
into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the
daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts
that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem
remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant
things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of
the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her
sabbaths.
8
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that
honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she
sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness
is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down
wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary
hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that
the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they
should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people
sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat
to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile.
12 ¶ Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold,
and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above
hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath
made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my
transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my
neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their
hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
15
The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me:
he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath
trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these
things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the
comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate,
because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth
forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded
concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is
as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The LORD is
righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray
you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone
into captivity.
19 I called for
my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost
in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O
LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned
within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home
there is as death.
21 They have
heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of
my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that
thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
22
Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou
hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my
heart is faint.
1 ¶ How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a
cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of
Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his
anger!
2 The Lord hath
swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown
down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought
them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3
He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath
drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob
like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent
his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew
all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as
an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he
hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath
violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the
solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the
indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath
cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the
hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The LORD hath
purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a
line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the
rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates are
sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king
and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also
find no vision from the LORD.
10 ¶ The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the
ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have
girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their
heads to the ground.
11
Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured
upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the
children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to
their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the
streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers'
bosom.
13 What thing
shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter
of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin
daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets
have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered
thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false
burdens and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass
by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of
Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The
joy of the whole earth?
16
All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and
gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day
that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The LORD hath
done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had
commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set
up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart
cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a
river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye
cease.
19
Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out
thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward
him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of
every street.
20 Behold, O
LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their
fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and
the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen
by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed,
and not pitied.
22 Thou hast
called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have
swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
1 ¶ I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of
his wrath.
2 He hath led me,
and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3
Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the
day.
4 My flesh and my
skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded
against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me
in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged
me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8
Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath
inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me
as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned
aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12
He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused
the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a
derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled
me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also
broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17
And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My
strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:
19 Remembering
mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath
them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 ¶ This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22
It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his
compassions fail not.
23 They are new
every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The LORD is my
portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The LORD is
good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation
of the LORD.
27 It is good for
a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth
alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his
mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30
He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with
reproach.
31 For the Lord
will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he
cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his
mercies.
33 For he doth
not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34
To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside
the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a
man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 ¶ Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when
the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the
mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39
Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his
sins?
40 Let us search
and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
41 Let us lift up
our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 ¶ We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast
not pardoned.
43 Thou hast
covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast
covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made
us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our
enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a
snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48
Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the
daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye
trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the LORD
look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye
affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52
Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut
off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed
over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 ¶ I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low
dungeon.
56 Thou hast
heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57
Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear
not.
58 O Lord, thou
hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O LORD, thou
hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen
all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast
heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of
those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their
sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto
them a recompence, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
65
Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and
destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.
1 ¶ How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold
changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
2
The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they
esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the sea
monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter
of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of
the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did
feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in
scarlet embrace dunghills.
6 For the
punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the
punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
7 Her Nazarites
were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body
than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is
blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to
their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
9
They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain
with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of
the field.
10 The hands of
the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the
destruction of the daughter of my people.
11 The LORD hath
accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath
kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.
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 ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled
away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.
16 The anger of
the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the
persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our
eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a
nation that could not save us.
18
They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near,
our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
19 Our
persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the
mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of
our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
21 ¶ Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that
dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou
shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
22 The punishment
of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more
carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of
Edom; he will discover thy sins.
1 ¶ Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and
behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance
is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
3
We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunken
our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our necks are
under persecution: we labour, and have no rest.
6 We have given
the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7
Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their
iniquities.
8 Servants have
ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our
bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black
like an oven because of the terrible famine.
11
They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are
hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.
13 They took the
young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders
have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.
15 The joy of our
heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
16
The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 ¶ For this our heart is faint; for these things our
eyes are dim.
18 Because of the
mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O LORD,
remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost
thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?
21
Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days
as of old.
22 But thou hast
utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.