Lamentations 4:1-3
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Chapter 4
Miseries of the Besieged City[a]
1 How the gold has lost its luster,
the noble metal changed;
Jewels[b] lie scattered
at the corner of every street.
2 And Zion’s precious children,
worth their weight in gold—
How they are treated like clay jugs,
the work of any potter!(A)
3 Even jackals offer their breasts
to nurse their young;
But the daughter of my people is as cruel
as the ostrich[c] in the wilderness.(B)
Footnotes
- 4:1–22 This chapter returns to the focus of chaps. 1 and 2, namely the horrors of a siege. Unlike chaps. 1 and 2, however, the character of personified Zion never interrupts the voice of the poet to protest her abject state. As a result, the emotion of the poem is less intense, while at the same time seeming more grim on account of its lack of petition to the Lord.
- 4:1–2 Jewels: lit., “holy stones.” These precious things designate the children who are abandoned, starving, and killed in the siege of Jerusalem (cf. Zec 9:16). Another explanation is that these are the stones of the destroyed Temple.
- 4:3 Cruel as the ostrich: see note on Jb 39:14–16. Jerusalem, in her distress, has abandoned her children.
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