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Chapter 1

The Desolation of Jerusalem[a]

How solitary sits the city,
    once filled with people.
She who was great among the nations
    is now like a widow.
Once a princess among the provinces,
    now a toiling slave.

She weeps incessantly in the night,
    her cheeks damp with tears.
She has no one to comfort her
    from all her lovers;[b]
Her friends have all betrayed her,
    and become her enemies.(A)

Judah has gone into exile,
    after oppression and harsh labor;
She dwells among the nations,
    yet finds no rest:(B)
All her pursuers overtake her
    in the narrow straits.

The roads to Zion mourn,
    empty of pilgrims to her feasts.
All her gateways are desolate,
    her priests groan,
Her young women grieve;
    her lot is bitter.(C)

Her foes have come out on top,
    her enemies are secure;
Because the Lord has afflicted her
    for her many rebellions.
Her children have gone away,
    captive before the foe.

From daughter Zion has gone
    all her glory:
Her princes have become like rams
    that find no pasture.
They have gone off exhausted
    before their pursuers.

Jerusalem remembers
    in days of wretched homelessness,
All the precious things she once had
    in days gone by.
But when her people fell into the hands of the foe,
    and she had no help,
Her foes looked on and laughed
    at her collapse.

Jerusalem has sinned grievously,
    therefore she has become a mockery;
Those who honored her now demean her,
    for they saw her nakedness;
She herself groans out loud,
    and turns away.(D)

Her uncleanness is on her skirt;
    she has no thought of her future.
Her downfall is astonishing,
    with no one to comfort her.
“Look, O Lord, at my misery;
    how the enemy triumphs!”[c]

10 The foe stretched out his hands
    to all her precious things;
She has seen the nations
    enter her sanctuary,
Those you forbade to come
    into your assembly.(E)

11 All her people groan,
    searching for bread;
They give their precious things for food,
    to retain the breath of life.
“Look, O Lord, and pay attention
    to how I have been demeaned!

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Footnotes

  1. 1:1–22 In this poem the poet first takes on the persona of an observer describing Jerusalem’s abject state after the destruction wrought by the Babylonian army (vv. 1–11a); but the detached tone gives way to a more impassioned appeal when the city itself—personified as the grieving widow and mother Zion—abruptly intrudes upon this description (vv. 9c, 11c–16, 18–22) to demand that God look squarely at her misery.
  2. 1:2 Lovers: language of love was typically used to describe the relationship between treaty partners, thus here it connotes Judah’s allies (see v. 19).
  3. 1:9 Zion breaks in on the poet’s description in v. 9c, albeit briefly, to demand that the Lord face squarely her misery. She takes up the lament in a more sustained fashion in v. 11c.