Lamentations 1

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Zion Lays Desolate

א Aleph

How lonely sits the city

That was great with people!

She has become like a widow

Who was once great among the nations!

She who was a princess among the provinces

Has become a forced laborer!

ב Beth

She weeps bitterly in the night,

And her tears are on her cheeks;

She has none to comfort her

Among all her lovers.

All her friends have dealt treacherously with her;

They have become her enemies.

ג Gimel

Judah has gone into exile because of affliction

And because of great slavery;

She sits among the nations,

But she has found no rest;

All her pursuers have overtaken her

In the midst of distress.

ד Daleth

The roads of Zion are in mourning

Because no one comes to the appointed times.

All her gates are desolate;

Her priests are sighing,

Her virgins are grieving,

And she herself is bitter.

ה He

Her adversaries have become her masters;

Her enemies are complacent;

For Yahweh has caused her grief

Because of the greatness of her transgressions;

Her infants have gone away

As captives before the adversary.

ו Vav

So all her majesty

Has gone out from the daughter of Zion;

Her princes have become like deer

That have found no pasture;

So they have fled without strength

Before the pursuer.

ז Zayin

In the days of her affliction and homelessness

Jerusalem remembers all her precious 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 laughed at her ruin.

ח Heth

Jerusalem sinned greatly;

Therefore she has become an impure thing.

All who honored her despise her

Because they have seen her nakedness;

Even she herself sighs and turns away.

ט Teth

Her uncleanness was in her skirts;

She did not remember her future.

Therefore she has gone down astonishingly;

She has no comforter.

“See, O Yahweh, my affliction,

For the enemy has magnified himself!”

י Yodh

The adversary has stretched out his hand

Over all her desirable things,

For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary,

The ones whom You commanded

That they should not enter into Your assembly.

כ Kaph

All her people are sighing, seeking bread;

They have given their desirable things for food

To restore their souls.

“See, O Yahweh, and look,

For I am despised.”

ל Lamedh

“Is it nothing to all you who pass this way?

Look and see if there is any pain like my pain

Which was dealt severely to me,

Which Yahweh grieved me with on the day of His burning anger.

מ Mem

From on high He sent fire into my bones,

And it dominated them.

He has spread a net for my feet;

He has turned me back;

He has made me desolate,

Faint all day long.

נ Nun

The yoke of my transgressions is bound;

By His hand they are knit together.

They have come upon my neck;

He has made my strength stumble.

The Lord has given me into the hands

Of those against whom I am not able to stand.

ס Samekh

The Lord has rejected all my mighty men

In my midst;

He has called an appointed time against me

To break my young men;

The Lord has trodden as in a wine press

The virgin daughter of Judah.

ע Ayin

For these things I am weeping;

My eyes run down with water;

Because far from me is a comforter,

One who restores my soul.

My children are desolate

Because the enemy has prevailed.”

פ Pe

Zion stretches out her hands;

There is no one to comfort her;

Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob

That the ones round about him should be his adversaries;

Jerusalem has become an impure thing among them.

צ Tsadhe

“Yahweh is righteous;

For I have rebelled against His command;

Hear now, all peoples,

And behold my pain;

My virgins and my young men

Have gone into captivity.

ק Qoph

I called to my lovers, but they deceived me;

My priests and my elders breathed their last in the city

While they sought food for themselves in order to restore their souls.

ר Resh

See, O Yahweh, for I am in distress;

My inmost being is greatly disturbed;

My heart is overturned within me,

For I have been very rebellious.

In the street the sword bereaves;

In the house it is like death.

שׁ Shin

They have heard that I am sighing;

There is no one to comfort me;

All my enemies have heard of the evil done to me;

They rejoice that You have done it.

You have brought the day which You have proclaimed,

So that they will become like me.

ת Tav

Let all their evil come before You;

And deal severely with them as You have dealt severely with me

For all my transgressions;

For my groans are great and my heart is faint.”

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