1 How the Lord {Adonai, Supreme Judge} has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud in His anger. From heaven to earth He has flung down the beauty {tiferet: splendor} of Israel, and in the day of His anger He did not call His footstool to mind.
2 The Lord {Adonai, Righteous Judge} has devoured all the habitations {neot: dwellings} of Jacob and has not shown compassion. In His burning anger He tore down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah, brought them crashing to the ground, and profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 In the heat of His anger He {Adonai, Righteous Judge} cut off every horn {keren: symbol of strength} of Israel; He drew back His right hand from before the enemy, and in Jacob He blazed like a consuming flame that devoured all around.
4 He aimed His bow as an enemy; His right hand stood ready like an adversary. In the tent of Zion’s daughter He killed all that were delights {machamadei-ayin: precious treasures} to the eye; He spilled out His wrath like fire {ka-esh: intense blaze}.
5 The Lord {Adonai, Sovereign Master} became like an enemy—He swallowed up Israel; He swallowed up all her palaces. He demolished her strongholds, and He multiplied mourning {ta’aniyyah: deep grief} and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.
6 He laid waste His booth like a garden shelter; He wrecked His appointed meeting place. The LORD {YHWH, Righteous Judge} caused festival {moed: sacred assembly} and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and He rejected both king and priest in the indignation of His anger.
7 The Lord {Adonai, Supreme Master} has abandoned His altar {mizbecho: sacrificial platform}, scorned His sanctuary, and yielded the walls of her palaces to enemy hands; they have raised a shout in the house of the LORD {YHWH, Covenant Judge} like on a festival day.
8 The LORD {YHWH, Sovereign Planner} intended to ruin Zion’s daughter’s wall. He stretched out the measuring line {kav: judgment cord} and did not pull back His hand from destroying; so He made rampart and wall lament, and together they languished.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has ruined and snapped her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; the law {torah: instruction} is no more, and her prophets also find no vision from the LORD {YHWH, Covenant Judge}.
10 The elders {ziknei: community leaders} of Zion’s daughter sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and wrapped themselves in sackcloth {saqqim: mourning garment}; the virgins of Jerusalem have lowered their heads to the earth.
11 My eyes are worn out with tears, my inward parts {meiai: seat of emotion} are troubled, my liver is poured out to the ground because of the destruction {shever: shattering ruin} of the daughter of my people, as infant and suckling faint in the city streets.
12 To their mothers they say, “Where is grain and wine?” as they faint {hitattefam: reflexive collapse} like the slain in the streets of the city, as their soul is poured out into the bosom of their mothers {immotam: birth-givers}.
13 What can I bring forward for you, and what can I liken {damah: show likeness} to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What can I set beside you so that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin {shivrekh: brokenness, collapse} is as vast as the sea; who can heal you?
14 Your prophets {neviayikh: Divine Spokespeople} saw for you falsehood and emptiness; they did not uncover your iniquity {avonekha: Moral Guilt} to turn back your captivity, but they showed you burdens of falsehood and causes of banishment.
15 All who pass along the road clap their hands {kappayim: symbol of scorn} at you; they hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem {Yerushalayim: capital city}, saying, “Is this the city called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
16 All your enemies {oyev: adversaries} opened their mouths wide against you. They hissed and gnashed their teeth and said, “We have swallowed her up {bilanu: to devour completely}.” Surely this is the day we waited for; we have found it, we have seen it.
17 The LORD {YHWH, Covenant Judge} has done what He planned; He has carried out His word that He commanded from days of old. He tore down and did not pity; He made the enemy rejoice over you and lifted up the horn {qeren: symbol of strength} of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord {Adonai, Supreme Master}: O wall of Zion’s daughter, let tears run down like a stream day and night; give yourself no relief {fugat: respite from sorrow}, and let the apple of your eye not be silent.
19 Rise; cry out in the night, at the start of the watches. Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord {Adonai, Sovereign Master}; lift up your hands to Him for the life {nefesh: whole being} of your infants who faint from hunger at the head of every street.
20 Look, O LORD {YHWH, Supreme Judge}, and consider. To whom have You done this? Should women eat their fruit, the children of tender care {tipuchim: gentle nurture}? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord {Adonai, Sovereign Master}?
21 Young and old lie prostrate on the ground of the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; You {YHWH, Executor of Wrath} have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered, not sparing {hamalta: held back compassion}.
22 You called, as on a festival day, my terrors from every side; and in the day of the anger of the LORD {YHWH, Righteous Avenger} none escaped or survived. Those whom I nurtured {tipachti: cared for tenderly} and raised, my enemy consumed.