Lamentations 4:7-9

New International Reader's Version

⁷ Jerusalem’s princes were brighter than snow.
    They were whiter than milk.
Their bodies were redder than rubies.
    They looked like lapis lazuli.

⁸ But now they are blacker than coal.
    No one even recognizes them in the streets.
Their skin is wrinkled on their bones.
    It has become as dry as a stick.

⁹ Those killed by swords are better off
    than those who die of hunger.
Those who are hungry waste away to nothing.
    They don’t have any food from the fields.