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The Holy
Bible
Lamentations
Chapter 1
1 How doth the city sit
solitary, that was full of people
how is she become as a widow she
that was was great among the
nations, and princess among the
provinces, how is she become
tributary
2 She weepeth sore in the
night, and her tears are on her
cheeks: among all her lovers she
hath none to comfort her: all her
friends have dealt treacherously
with her, they are become her
enemies.
3 Judah is gone into
captivity because of affliction,
and because of great servitude:
she dwelleth among the heathen,
she findeth no rest: all her
persecutors overtook her between
the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do
mourn, because none come to the
solemn feasts: all her gates are
desolate: her priests sigh, her
virgins are afflicted, and she is
in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the
chief, her enemies prosper; for
the LORD hath afflicted her for
the multitude of her
transgressions: her children are
gone into captivity before the
enemy.
6 And from the daughter of
Zion all her beauty is departed:
her princes are become like harts
that find no pasture, and they
are gone without strength before
the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in
the days of her affliction and of
her miseries all her pleasant
things that she had in the days
of old, when her people fell into
the hand of the enemy, and none
did help her: the adversaries saw
her, and did mock at her
sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath
grievously sinned; therefore she
is removed: all that honoured her
despise her, because they have
seen her nakedness: yea, she
sigheth, and turneth
backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her
skirts; she remembereth not her
last end; therefore she came down
wonderfully: she had no
comforter. O LORD, behold my
affliction: for the enemy hath
magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath
spread out his hand upon all her
pleasant things: for she hath
seen that the heathen entered
into her sanctuary, whom thou
didst command that they should
not enter into thy
congregation.
11 All her people sigh,
they seek bread; they have given
their pleasant things for meat to
relieve the soul: see, O LORD,
and consider; for I am become
vile.
12 Is it nothing to you,
all ye that pass by? behold, and
see if there be any sorrow like
unto my sorrow, which is done
unto me, wherewith the LORD hath
afflicted me in the day of his
fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent
fire into my bones, and it
prevaileth against them: he hath
spread a net for my feet, he hath
turned me back: he hath made me
desolate and faint all the
day.
14 The yoke of my
transgressions is bound by his
hand: they are wreathed, and come
up upon my neck: he hath made my
strength to fall, the Lord hath
delivered me into their hands,
from whom I am not able to rise
up.
15 The Lord hath trodden
under foot all my mighty men in
the midst of me: he hath called
an assembly against me to crush
my young men: the Lord hath
trodden the virgin, the daughter
of Judah, as in a winepress.
16 For these things I
weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth
down with water, because the
comforter that should relieve my
soul is far from me: my children
are desolate, because the enemy
prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth
her hands, and there is none to
comfort her: the LORD hath
commanded concerning Jacob, that
his adversaries should be round
about him: Jerusalem is as a
menstruous woman among them.
18 The LORD is righteous;
for I have rebelled against his
commandment: hear, I pray you,
all people, and behold my sorrow:
my virgins and my young men are
gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers,
but they deceived me: my priests
and mine elders gave up the ghost
in the city, while they sought
their meat to relieve their
souls.
20 Behold, O LORD; for I
am in distress: my bowels are
troubled; mine heart is turned
within me; for I have grievously
rebelled: abroad the sword
bereaveth, at home there is as
death.
21 They have heard that I
sigh: there is none to comfort
me: all mine enemies have heard
of my trouble; they are glad that
thou hast done it: thou wilt
bring the day that thou hast
called, and they shall be like
unto me.
22 Let all their
wickedness come before thee; and
do unto them, as thou hast done
unto me for all my
transgressions: for my sighs are
many, and my heart is faint.
Chapter 2
1 How hath the Lord
covered the daughter of Zion with
a cloud in his anger, and cast
down from heaven unto the earth
the beauty of Israel, and
remembered not his footstool in
the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed
up all the habitations of Jacob,
and hath not pitied: he hath
thrown down in his wrath the
strong holds of the daughter of
Judah; he hath brought them down
to the ground: he hath polluted
the kingdom and the princes
thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his
fierce anger all the horn of
Israel: he hath drawn back his
right hand from before the enemy,
and he burned against Jacob like
a flaming fire, which devoureth
round about.
4 He hath bent his bow
like an enemy: he stood with his
right hand as an adversary, and
slew all that were pleasant to
the eye in the tabernacle of the
daughter of Zion: he poured out
his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an
enemy: he hath swallowed up
Israel, he hath swallowed up all
her palaces: he hath destroyed
his strong holds, and hath
increased in the daughter of
Judah mourning and
lamentation.
6 And he hath violently
taken away his tabernacle, as if
it were of a garden: he hath
destroyed his places of the
assembly: the LORD hath caused
the solemn feasts and sabbaths to
be forgotten in Zion, and hath
despised in the indignation of
his anger the king and the
priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off
his altar, he hath abhorred his
sanctuary, he hath given up into
the hand of the enemy the walls
of her palaces; they have made a
noise in the house of the LORD,
as in the day of a solemn
feast.
8 The LORD hath purposed
to destroy the wall of the
daughter of Zion: he hath
stretched out a line, he hath not
withdrawn his hand from
destroying: therefore he made the
rampart and the wall to lament;
they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into
the ground; he hath destroyed and
broken her bars: her king and her
princes are among the Gentiles:
the law is no more; her prophets
also find no vision from the
LORD.
10 The elders of the
daughter of Zion sit upon the
ground, and keep silence: they
have cast up dust upon their
heads; they have girded
themselves with sackcloth: the
virgins of Jerusalem hang down
their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with
tears, my bowels are troubled, my
liver is poured upon the earth,
for the destruction of the
daughter of my people; because
the children and the sucklings
swoon in the streets of the
city.
12 They say to their
mothers, Where is corn and wine?
when they swooned as the wounded
in the streets of the city, when
their soul was poured out into
their mothers' bosom.
13 What thing shall I take
to witness for thee? what thing
shall I liken to thee, O daughter
of Jerusalem? what shall I equal
to thee, that I may comfort thee,
O virgin daughter of Zion? for
thy breach is great like the sea:
who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen
vain and foolish things for thee:
and they have not discovered
thine iniquity, to turn away thy
captivity; but have seen for thee
false burdens and causes of
banishment.
15 All that pass by clap
their hands at thee; they hiss
and wag their head at the
daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is
this the city that men call The
perfection of beauty, The joy of
the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have
opened their mouth against thee:
they hiss and gnash the teeth:
they say, We have swallowed her
up: certainly this is the day
that we looked for; we have
found, we have seen it.
17 The LORD hath done that
which he had devised; he hath
fulfilled his word that he had
commanded in the days of old: he
hath thrown down, and hath not
pitied: and he hath caused thine
enemy to rejoice over thee, he
hath set up the horn of thine
adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto
the Lord, O wall of the daughter
of Zion, let tears run down like
a river day and night: give
thyself no rest; let not the
apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the
night: in the beginning of the
watches pour out thine heart like
water before the face of the
Lord: lift up thy hands toward
him for the life of thy young
children, that faint for hunger
in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O LORD, and
consider to whom thou hast done
this. Shall the women eat their
fruit, and children of a span
long? shall the priest and the
prophet be slain in the sanctuary
of the Lord?
21 The young and the old
lie on the ground in the streets:
my virgins and my young men are
fallen by the sword; thou hast
slain them in the day of thine
anger; thou hast killed, and not
pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in
a solemn day my terrors round
about, so that in the day of the
LORD's anger none escaped nor
remained: those that I have
swaddled and brought up hath mine
enemy consumed.
Chapter 3
1 I am the man that
hath seen affliction by the rod
of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and
brought me into darkness, but not
into light.
3 Surely against me is he
turned; he turneth his hand
against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin
hath he made old; he hath broken
my bones.
5 He hath builded against
me, and compassed me with gall
and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark
places, as they that be dead of
old.
7 He hath hedged me about,
that I cannot get out: he hath
made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and
shout, he shutteth out my
prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways
with hewn stone, he hath made my
paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a
bear lying in wait, and as a lion
in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my
ways, and pulled me in pieces: he
hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow,
and set me as a mark for the
arrow.
13 He hath caused the
arrows of his quiver to enter
into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all
my people; and their song all the
day.
15 He hath filled me with
bitterness, he hath made me
drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my
teeth with gravel stones, he hath
covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed
my soul far off from peace: I
forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength
and my hope is perished from the
LORD:
19 Remembering mine
affliction and my misery, the
wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still
in remembrance, and is humbled in
me.
21 This I recall to my
mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the LORD's
mercies that we are not consumed,
because his compassions fail
not.
23 They are new every
morning: great is thy
faithfulness.
24 The LORD is my portion,
saith my soul; therefore will I
hope in him.
25 The LORD is good unto
them that wait for him, to the
soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man
should both hope and quietly wait
for the salvation of the
LORD.
27 It is good for a man
that he bear the yoke in his
youth.
28 He sitteth alone and
keepeth silence, because he hath
borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in
the dust; if so be there may be
hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to
him that smiteth him: he is
filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not
cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause
grief, yet will he have
compassion according to the
multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict
willingly nor grieve the children
of men.
34 To crush under his feet
all the prisoners of the
earth,
35 To turn aside the right
of a man before the face of the
most High,
36 To subvert a man in his
cause, the Lord approveth
not.
37 Who is he that saith,
and it cometh to pass, when the
Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the
most High proceedeth not evil and
good?
39 Wherefore doth a living
man complain, a man for the
punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try
our ways, and turn again to the
LORD.
41 Let us lift up our
heart with our hands unto God in
the heavens.
42 We have transgressed
and have rebelled: thou hast not
pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with
anger, and persecuted us: thou
hast slain, thou hast not
pitied.
44 Thou hast covered
thyself with a cloud, that our
prayer should not pass
through.
45 Thou hast made us as
the offscouring and refuse in the
midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have
opened their mouths against
us.
47 Fear and a snare is
come upon us, desolation and
destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down
with rivers of water for the
destruction of the daughter of my
people.
49 Mine eye trickleth
down, and ceaseth not, without
any intermission,
50 Till the LORD look
down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine
heart because of all the
daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me
sore, like a bird, without
cause.
53 They have cut off my
life in the dungeon, and cast a
stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine
head; then I said, I am cut
off.
55 I called upon thy name,
O LORD, out of the low
dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my
voice: hide not thine ear at my
breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in
the day that I called upon thee:
thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast
pleaded the causes of my soul;
thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O LORD, thou hast seen
my wrong: judge thou my
cause.
60 Thou hast seen all
their vengeance and all their
imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their
reproach, O LORD, and all their
imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that
rose up against me, and their
device against me all the
day.
63 Behold their sitting
down, and their rising up; I am
their musick.
64 Render unto them a
recompence, O LORD, according to
the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of
heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy
them in anger from under the
heavens of the LORD.
Chapter 4
1 How is the gold
become dim! how is the most fine
gold changed! the stones of the
sanctuary are poured out in the
top of every street.
2 The precious sons of
Zion, comparable to fine gold,
how are they esteemed as earthen
pitchers, the work of the hands
of the potter!
3 Even the sea monsters
draw out the breast, they give
suck to their young ones: the
daughter of my people is become
cruel, like the ostriches in the
wilderness.
4 The tongue of the
sucking child cleaveth to the
roof of his mouth for thirst: the
young children ask bread, and no
man breaketh it unto them.
5 They that did feed
delicately are desolate in the
streets: they that were brought
up in scarlet embrace
dunghills.
6 For the punishment of
the iniquity of the daughter of
my people is greater than the
punishment of the sin of Sodom,
that was overthrown as in a
moment, and no hands stayed on
her.
7 Her Nazarites were purer
than snow, they were whiter than
milk, they were more ruddy in
body than rubies, their polishing
was of sapphire:
8 Their visage is blacker
than a coal; they are not known
in the streets: their skin
cleaveth to their bones; it is
withered, it is become like a
stick.
9 They that be slain with
the sword are better than they
that be slain with hunger: for
these pine away, stricken through
for want of the fruits of the
field.
10 The hands of the
pitiful women have sodden their
own children: they were their
meat in the destruction of the
daughter of my people.
11 The LORD hath
accomplished his fury; he hath
poured out his fierce anger, and
hath kindled a fire in Zion, and
it hath devoured the foundations
thereof.
12 The kings of the earth,
and all the inhabitants of the
world, would not have believed
that the adversary and the enemy
should have entered into the
gates of Jerusalem.
13 For the sins of her
prophets, and the iniquities of
her priests, that have shed the
blood of the just in the midst of
her,
14 They have wandered as
blind men in the streets, they
have polluted themselves with
blood, so that men could not
touch their garments.
15 They cried unto them,
Depart ye; it is unclean; depart,
depart, touch not: when they fled
away and wandered, they said
among the heathen, They shall no
more sojourn there.
16 The anger of the LORD
hath divided them; he will no
more regard them: they respected
not the persons of the priests,
they favoured not the elders.
17 As for us, our eyes as
yet failed for our vain help: in
our watching we have watched for
a nation that could not save
us.
18 They hunt our steps,
that we cannot go in our streets:
our end is near, our days are
fulfilled; for our end is
come.
19 Our persecutors are
swifter than the eagles of the
heaven: they pursued us upon the
mountains, they laid wait for us
in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our
nostrils, the anointed of the
LORD, was taken in their pits, of
whom we said, Under his shadow we
shall live among the heathen.
21 Rejoice and be glad, O
daughter of Edom, that dwellest
in the land of Uz; the cup also
shall pass through unto thee:
thou shalt be drunken, and shalt
make thyself naked.
22 The punishment of thine
iniquity is accomplished, O
daughter of Zion; he will no more
carry thee away into captivity:
he will visit thine iniquity, O
daughter of Edom; he will
discover thy sins.
Chapter 5
1 Remember, O LORD,
what is come upon us: consider,
and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is
turned to strangers, our houses
to aliens.
3 We are orphans and
fatherless, our mothers are as
widows.
4 We have drunken our
water for money; our wood is sold
unto us.
5 Our necks are under
persecution: we labour, and have
no rest.
6 We have given the hand
to the Egyptians, and to the
Assyrians, to be satisfied with
bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned,
and are not; and we have borne
their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over
us: there is none that doth
deliver us out of their hand.
9 We gat our bread with
the peril of our lives because of
the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin was black like
an oven because of the terrible
famine.
11 They ravished the women
in Zion, and the maids in the
cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hanged up
by their hand: the faces of
elders were not honoured.
13 They took the young men
to grind, and the children fell
under the wood.
14 The elders have ceased
from the gate, the young men from
their musick.
15 The joy of our heart is
ceased; our dance is turned into
mourning.
16 The crown is fallen
from our head: woe unto us, that
we have sinned!
17 For this our heart is
faint; for these things our eyes
are dim.
18 Because of the mountain
of Zion, which is desolate, the
foxes walk upon it.
19 Thou, O LORD, remainest
for ever; thy throne from
generation to generation.
20 Wherefore dost thou
forget us for ever, and forsake
us so long time?
21 Turn thou us unto thee,
O LORD, and we shall be turned;
renew our days as of old.
22 But thou hast utterly
rejected us; thou art very wroth
against us.
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