After the people of Israel had been taken into captivity and Jerusalem had been left desolate, Jeremiah the prophet sat down weeping and made this lamentation over Jerusalem; sighing in the bitterness of his heart and crying out, he said:
Chapter 1
ALEPH.
1. How is she seat The populous city is lonely! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow. She who was queen among the provinces has been subjected to tribute.
BETH.
2 She weeps bitterly during the night, and tears cover her cheeks; not one of her lovers consoles her; all her companions have betrayed her, they have become her enemies.
GHIMEL.
3 Judah went into exile, miserable and condemned to hard labor; he dwells among the nations, without finding rest; his persecutors have overtaken him in narrow passes.
DALETH.
4 The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her feasts anymore; all her gates are in ruins, her priests groan, her virgins grieve, and she herself is in bitterness.
HEY.
5 Her oppressors have the upper hand, her enemies prosper; for Yahweh has afflicted her because of the multitude of her offenses; her little children have gone into captivity before the oppressor.
VAV.
6 And the daughter of Zion has lost all her glory; her princes are like deer that find no pasture, and go away without strength before the one who pursues them.
ZAÏN.
7 Jerusalem remembers, in the days of her affliction and her wandering life, all her precious possessions that she had from days of old. Now that her people have fallen into the hand of the oppressor, and no one comes to her aid, her enemies see her, and they laugh at her inaction.
HETH.
8 Jerusalem has multiplied her sins; therefore she has become a defiled thing; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans, and turns away her face.
TETH.
9 Her filthiness is evident beneath the folds of her robe; she did not consider her end. And she has fallen in a strange way, and no one comforts her! »See, Yahweh, my misery, for the enemy triumphs!«
JOD.
10 The oppressor has stretched out his hand on all her treasures; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, nations concerning which you had given this order: "They shall not enter your assembly."»
CAPH.
11 All his people groan, searching for bread; they give their jewels for food, which gives them life. »See Yahweh and consider the abjection into which I have fallen!«
LAMED.
12 »O all you who pass by on the road, look and see if there is any sorrow like the sorrow that is upon me, whom Yahweh has struck down in the day of his fierce anger!”
MEM.
13 »From on high he sent fire into my bones and it consumed them; he spread a net before my feet, he made me retreat; he threw me into desolation, I languish all day long.
NUN.
14 »The yoke of my iniquities has been bound in his hand; they are bound together and weigh down upon my neck; he has made my strength falter. The Lord has delivered me into hands I cannot resist.”.
SAMECH.
15 »The Lord has taken away all the warriors who were in my midst; he has summoned an army against me, to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah in the winepress.
AÏN.
16 »That is why I weep, why my eyes overflow with tears; for there is no one near me to comfort me, no one to restore my life; my children are desolate, for the enemy prevails.«
PHÉ.
17 Zion stretched out her hands… There was no one to comfort her! Yahweh summoned his enemies against Jacob, who surrounded him; Jerusalem became in their midst like a defiled thing.
TSADÉ.
18 »The Lord is truly righteous, for I have rebelled against his commands. Oh, listen, all you peoples, and see my sorrow: my virgins and my young men have gone into exile!”
QOPH.
19 I called my lovers, they deceived me; my priests and my elders perished in the city, seeking food to revive their lives.
RESCUE.
20 »Look, Yahweh, at my anguish! My heart is in turmoil; my soul is troubled within me, because I have been very rebellious. Outside, the sword slays my children; inside, there is death!”
SIN.
21 »They hear my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me! All my enemies, hearing of my misfortune, rejoice at what you have done. You will bring about the day you have announced, and they will become like me!”
THAV.
22 »Let all their wickedness be before you, so that you may treat them as you have treated me, because of all my offenses! For my groans are many, and my heart is sick!«
Chapter 2
ALEPH.
1 How the Lord, in his anger, has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud? He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered the footstool of his feet in the day of his anger.
BETH.
2 The Lord has destroyed without pity all the dwellings of Jacob; in his fury he has overthrown the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has thrown them to the ground; he has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
GHIMEL.
3 In the heat of his anger he broke all the strength of Israel; he drew back his right hand before the enemy; he kindled in Jacob like a burning fire that devoured on all sides.
DALETH.
4 He bent his bow like an enemy; his right hand was raised like that of an assailant; and he slaughtered all that was pleasing to the eye; in the tent of the daughter of Zion, he poured out his wrath like fire.
HEY.
5 The Lord was like an enemy; he destroyed Israel; he destroyed all its palaces, he demolished its citadels; he heaped pain upon pain upon the daughter of Zion.
VAV.
6 He has violated its enclosure, like a garden; he has destroyed its sanctuary. The Lord has put an end to the solemnities and Sabbaths in Zion; in the heat of his anger, he has rejected king and priest with contempt.
ZAÏN.
7 The Lord has detested his altar, and abhorred his sanctuary; he has given the walls of his citadels into the hands of the enemy; there has been shouting in the house of Yahweh, as on a day of celebration.
HETH.
8 The Lord has planned to overthrow the walls of the daughter of Zion; he has stretched out the measuring line; he has not withdrawn his hand until he has THE would have destroyed; he has plunged the wall and the outer wall into mourning; they lie sadly together.
TETH.
9 Its gates are sunk into the ground, he has broken down and shattered its bars; its king and its princes are among the nations, there is no longer any law; even its prophets no longer receive visions from Yahweh.
JOD.
10 They sit on the ground in silence, the elders of the daughter of Zion; they have thrown dust on their heads, they are clothed in sackcloth; they bow their heads to the ground, the virgins of Jerusalem.
CAPH.
11 My eyes are consumed with tears, my heart is in turmoil; my liver pours out on the ground, because of the injury of the daughter of my people, when children and infants faint in the city squares.
LAMED.
12 They say to their mothers, »Where is there bread and wine?» and they fall as though struck by the sword in the city squares; and their soul dies on their mothers’ breasts.
MEM.
13 What can I say to you? Who is like you, daughter of Jerusalem? To whom can I compare you, virgin daughter of Zion, to comfort you? For your wound is as deep as the sea; who can heal you?
NUN.
14 Your prophets have seen for you vain and foolish visions; they have not revealed your iniquity to you, so as to avert exile from you; but they have given you visions of false and deceitful oracles.
SAMECH.
15 Everyone who passes by claps their hands at you; they hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem. Is this the city that was called perfect in beauty? joy of the whole world?
PHÉ.
16 All your enemies open their mouths against you; they hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, »We L'’We have devoured it! This is the day we have been waiting for, we have arrived, we see it!«
AÏN.
17 Yahweh has carried out what he had planned; he has fulfilled his word, which he had spoken from of old; he has destroyed without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you, he has exalted the horn of your oppressors.
TSADÉ.
18 Their hearts cry out to the Lord! O wall of the daughter of Zion, let your tears flow like a torrent, day and night; give yourself no respite, let your eyes have no rest!
QOPH.
19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord! Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your little ones, who faint from fear because of hunger, on every street corner!
RESCUE.
20 »Look, Yahweh, and consider: whom have you ever treated like this? What! Women eat the fruit of their entrails, the little children they cherish?
SIN.
What! They are slaughtered in the sanctuary of the Lord, the priest and the prophet!
21 "They lie on the ground in the streets, the child and the old man; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; you slaughtered in the day of your anger, you sacrificed without pity.
THAV.
22 »You summoned my terrors from every side, as on a day of celebration; on the day of the Lord’s anger, there was no one who escaped or fled: those whom I had cherished and exalted, my enemy has annihilated!«
Chapter 3
ALEPH.
1 I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his fury.
2 He led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light;
Three against me alone, he turns and turns his hand all day long.
BETH.
4 He has worn out my flesh and my skin, he has broken my bones;
5 He has built against me, he has surrounded me with bitterness and sorrow.
6 He has made me dwell in darkness, like those who have long been dead.
GHIMEL.
7 He has surrounded me with a wall so that I cannot get out; he has made my chains heavy.
8 Even when I cry out and plead, he shuts out all access to my prayer.
9 He has walled up my ways with hewn stones, he has disrupted my paths.
DALETH.
10 He was to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in ambush;
11 He has turned my ways aside and torn me to pieces; he has left me desolate;
12 He strung his bow and placed me as the target for his arrows.
HEY.
13 He has driven the threads of his quiver into my loins;
14 I am the laughingstock of all my people, their song all day long;
15 He filled me with bitterness, he gave me wormwood to drink.
VAV.
16 And he made my teeth grind gravel, he plunged me into ashes;
17 and my soul is violently Excluded from security; I have forgotten happiness;
18 And I said, »My strength is lost, and so is my hope in the Lord!«
ZAÏN.
19 Remember my affliction and my suffering, the wormwood and the bitterness!
20 My soul remembers it constantly, and it is downcast within me.
21 This is what I will remember in my heart, and this is why I will hope:
TETH.
25 Yahweh is good to those who hope in him, to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good to wait quietly for Yahweh's deliverance.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke from his youth.
JOD.
28 Let him sit apart in silence, if God requires it!
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust: perhaps there is hope!
30 Let him turn his cheek to the one who strikes him; let him be filled with shame!
CAPH.
31 For the Lord does not reject forever;
32 But if he causes grief, he has compassion, according to his great mercy;
33 because it is not from Good heart that he humbles, and that he afflicts the children of men.
LAMED.
34 When all the captives of the land are trampled underfoot,
35 when a man's rights are perverted, in the face of the Most High,
36 When someone is wronged in their cause, the Lord will not see it!
MEM.
37 Who spoke, and it was done, without the Lord having commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that evils and good proceed?
39 Why should man complain as long as he lives? Let each complains of his sins!
NUN.
40 Let us examine our ways and search them out, and return to Yahweh.
41 Let us lift up our hearts, with our hands, to God in heaven:
42 »We have sinned, we have rebelled; you have not forgiven.«
SAMECH.
43 »You have wrapped yourself in your anger, and you have pursued us; you have killed without sparing;
44 You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that the prayer may not pass away;
45 You have made us like rubbish and scum among the peoples.«
PHÉ.
46 They open their mouths against us, all our enemies.
47 Terror and the pit were our lot, as well as devastation and ruin.
48 My eye melts into a stream of tears, because of the ruin of the daughter of my people.
AÏN.
49 My eye weeps and does not cease, because there is no respite,
50 until he looks and sees, Yahweh, from the top from the heavens.
51 My eye aches for my soul, because of all the girls in my city.
TSADÉ.
52 They have hunted me down like a sparrow, those who hate me without cause.
53 They have wanted to destroy my life in the pit, and they threw a stone at me.
54 The waters were rising above my head; I said, "I am lost!"»
QOPH.
55 I called upon your name, Yahweh, from the deep pit;
56 You have heard my voice: »Do not close your ear to my sighs, to my cries!«
57 You came to me on the day I called upon you, and you said, »Do not be afraid!«
RESCUE.
58 Lord, you took up my cause, you saved my life.
59 You have seen, Yahweh, the violence they are doing to me; grant me justice!
60 You have seen all their resentment, all their plots against me.
SIN.
61 You have heard their insults, Yahweh, all their plots against me,
62 the words of my adversaries and what they plot against me all day long.
63 When they sit down or stand up, look: I am the object of their songs.
THAV.
64 You will repay them, Yahweh, according to the work of their hands;
65 You will give them blindness of heart; your curse will be for them.
66 You will pursue them in anger and you will destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh!
Chapter 4
ALEPH.
1 How did the gold tarnish, the pure gold become debased, the sacred stones be scattered to every street corner?
BETH.
2 The noblest sons of Zion, esteemed at weight Fine gold, how could it have been counted as earthenware vessels, the work of a potter's hands?
GHIMEL.
3 Even jackals offer their teats and nurse their young; the daughter of my people has become cruel, like ostriches in the desert.
DALETH.
4 The infant's tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth because of thirst; little children ask for bread, and no one gives it to them.
HEY.
5 Those who fed on delicacies fall from starvation in the streets; those who were carried on purple embrace the dung heap.
VAV.
6 And the iniquity of the daughter of my people was greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant, without any hand being raised against it.
ZAÏN.
7 His princes surpassed snow in brilliance, milk in whiteness; their Their bodies were more vermilion than coral, their faces were sapphires.
HETH.
8 Their appearance is darker than black itself; they are no longer recognizable in the streets; their skin is stuck to their bones, it is dry like wood.
TETH.
9 Blessed are the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, which are slowly wasting away, injured, for lack of produce from the fields!
JOD.
10 Compassionate women cooked their children with their own hands; they served as food for them, in the disaster of the daughter of my people.
CAPH.
11 Yahweh has exhausted his fury; he has poured out the heat of his anger, and kindled a fire in Zion that has devoured its foundations.
LAMED.
12 Neither the kings of the earth nor all the inhabitants of the world believed that the adversary, the enemy, would enter the gates of Jerusalem.
MEM.
13 It was because of the sins of her prophets, the iniquities of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous within her walls.
NUN.
14 They wandered as blind people in the streets, soiled with blood, so that their clothes could not be touched.
SAMECH.
15 »Get away! He’s unclean!» they shouted at them. «Get away! Get away! Don’t touch him!» They wandered about, and it was said among the nations, »Let them not stay here.” here !«
PHÉ.
16 The face irritated Yahweh has scattered them; he no longer looks upon them. The enemy He had neither respect for priests nor pity for the elderly.
AÏN.
17 And our eyes were still burning out at to wait for a vain attempt at help; from the top of our towers, we looked towards a nation that cannot save.
TSADÉ.
18 They were spying on our steps, preventing us to walk in our squares. Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; yes, our end has come!
QOPH.
19 Those who pursued us were swifter than the eagles of the sky; they chased us on the mountains; they set ambushes for us in the desert.
RESCUE.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, was taken from their pits, him of whom we said, »In his shadow we shall live among the nations.«
SIN.
21 Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, who dwells in the land of Hus! The cup will pass to you also; you will get drunk and undress.
THAV.
22 Your iniquity has ended, daughter of Zion; he will no longer send you into exile. He will punish your iniquity, daughter of Edom; he will expose your sins.
Chapter 5
1 Remember, Yahweh, what has happened to us; look and see our disgrace.
2 Our heritage has passed to strangers, our homes to unknown people.
3 We are orphans, without a father; our mothers are like widows.
4 We drink our water at a price of money, the wood comes to us only for a wage.
5 Our persecutors are pressing us from behind; we are exhausted; we have no rest.
6 We stretch out our hands to Egypt and to Assyria, to fill ourselves with bread.
7 Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities!
8 Slaves rule over us; no one We delivers from their hands.
9 We acquire our bread at danger of our life; before the sword of the desert.
10 Our skin is burning like an oven, as a result of the heat of hunger.
11 They have dishonored women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.
12 Some leaders were hanged by their own hands; the faces of the elders were not respected.
13 Teenagers carried the millstone; children staggered, laden with wood.
14 The old men have stopped to go to the door; the young people, from play of their lyre.
15 Joy The dancing in our hearts has ceased, our dances have turned to mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head; yes, woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 This is why our heart is sick, why our eyes are dim:
18 This is because Mount Zion is desolate, and jackals roam about on it.
19 You, Yahweh, sit enthroned forever; your throne remains From age to age!
20 Why would you forget us forever, abandon us for if long days?
21 Restore us to yourself, Yahweh, and we will return; renew our days as of old.
22 For would you have completely rejected us? Would you be so angry with us without measure?
