1How my Lord (Adonai) has beclouded the daughter of Zion in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel, and did not remember the footstool of his feet in the day of his anger.
2My Lord (Adonai) has swallowed up and did not spare all the habitations of Jacob; he has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought them down to the ground, he has profaned the kingdom and her princes.
3He has cut down in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; he has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy; and he has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that devours round about.
4He has bent his bow like an enemy, his right hand set like an adversary, and he slew all that were pleasant to the eye; in the tent of the daughter of Zion he poured out his fury like fire.
5My Lord (Adonai) has become like an enemy, he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all her palaces, he has destroyed his strongholds; and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and moaning.
6And he has done violence to his booth like a garden, he has destroyed his appointed place (moed); YHWH has caused to be forgotten in Zion appointed time (moed) and Shabbat, and in the indignation of his anger he has spurned king and priest.
7My Lord (Adonai) has rejected his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have raised a voice in the house of YHWH, as in the day of an appointed time (moed).
8YHWH has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; he has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; and he has made rampart and wall to mourn, together they languish.
9Her gates have sunk into the ground, he has destroyed and broken her bars; her king and her princes are among the nations, the Torah is no more; also her prophets find no vision from YHWH.
10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have cast up dust (aphar) on their heads, they have girded sackcloth; the virgins of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
11My eyes are spent with tears, my bowels burn, my liver is poured out to the ground, for the breaking of the daughter of my people; when child and suckling faint in the broad places of the town.
12To their mothers they say, "Where is grain and wine?" when they faint like the wounded in the broad places of the city, when their soul (nephesh) is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
13What shall I take as witness for you? What shall I liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your breaking is great like the sea; who can heal you?
14Your prophets have seen for you vanity and folly, and they have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captivity; but they have seen for you oracles of vanity and seductions.
15All who pass by the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem: "Is this the city that they called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?"
16All your enemies have opened wide their mouth against you; they hiss and gnash the teeth, they say, "We have swallowed her up; surely this is the day that we waited for; we have found it, we have seen it."
17YHWH has done what he purposed, he has fulfilled his word that he commanded (tzivvah) from the days of old; he has thrown down and did not spare; and he has made the enemy rejoice over you, he has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18Their heart cried to my Lord (Adonai): O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a stream day and night; give yourself no respite, let not the daughter of your eye be still.
19Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; pour out your heart like water before the face of my Lord (Adonai); lift up to him your hands for the soul (nephesh) of your young children, who faint with hunger at the head of every street.
20See, YHWH, and look, to whom you have dealt thus! Shall women (ishah) eat their fruit, the children they have dandled? Shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of my Lord (Adonai)?
21The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have slain in the day of your anger, you have slaughtered, you did not spare.
22You call, as on the day of an appointed time (moed), my terrors from round about; and there was none in the day of YHWH's anger that escaped or survived; those whom I dandled and raised, my enemy has consumed.