Lamentations 4

¹ How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold has changed! The sacred stones lie scattered at every street corner.

² The precious children of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold—how they are regarded as earthen jars, the work of a potter’s hands!

³ Even jackals offer their breasts and nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness.

⁴ The infant’s tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth from thirst. The children ask for bread, but no one gives them any.

⁵ Those who once ate delicacies lie abandoned in the streets; those raised in purple garments now cling to heaps of trash.

⁶ The guilt of the daughter of my people was greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overturned in an instant, with no hands laid against it.

⁷ Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were rosier than coral, their appearance like sapphire.

⁸ Their appearance is darker than soot; they are unrecognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled over their bones, dry as wood.

⁹ Those killed by the sword fared better than those killed by famine, who wasted away, pierced through for lack of the field’s produce.

¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women boiled their own children; they became food for them in the ruin of the daughter of my people.

¹¹ The LORD spent all his fury, poured out the heat of his anger. He kindled a fire in Zion, and it devoured her foundations.

¹² The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world, that an adversary and enemy would enter Jerusalem’s gates.

¹³ It was because of her prophets’ sins and her priests’ guilt, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.

¹⁴ They wandered blind through the streets, defiled with blood, so that no one could touch their garments.

¹⁵ “Away! Unclean!” people shouted at them. “Away, away, do not touch!” So they fled and wandered; among the nations it was said, “They will no longer live here.”

¹⁶ The face of the LORD scattered them; he will look on them no more. They showed no respect for the priests and no compassion for the elders.

¹⁷ Our eyes still wear themselves out, waiting for help that is only a breath. From our watchtower we kept waiting for a nation that cannot save.

¹⁸ They watched our steps so that we could not walk in our public squares. Our end is near, our days are complete, for our end has come.

¹⁹ Those pursuing us were swifter than the eagles in the sky; they chased us over the mountains and lay in wait for us in the wilderness.

²⁰ The breath of our nostrils, the LORD’s anointed, was caught in their traps—the one of whom we said, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”

²¹ Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, you who live in the land of Uz! The cup will pass to you too; you will get drunk and expose yourself.

²² Your guilt is finished, daughter of Zion; he will exile you no longer. But he will punish your guilt, daughter of Edom, and expose your sins.

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