Lamentations 4:8-10

Contemporary English Version

⁸ Now they are blacker than tar,
    and no one recognizes them;
their skin clings to their bones
    and is drier than firewood.
⁹ Being killed with a sword
is better than slowly
    starving to death.
^10 (A) Life in the city is so bad
that loving mothers have boiled
    and eaten their own children.