How the gold is become dim! the most fine gold is changed!{HR}The sacred stones are thrown down at the top of every street!
The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,{HR}How they are esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter.
Even the dragons draw out the breast, they suckle their young:{HR}The daughter of my people [is] cruel like the ostriches in the wilderness.
The tongue of the suckling cleaveth to its palate for thirst;{HR}Infants ask bread—none breaketh [it] for them.
They that fed daintily perish in the streets;{HR}They who were brought up on scarlet embrace dunghills.
For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,{HR}That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
Her Nazarites were brighter than snow, they were whiter than milk;{HR}They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their cutting (shape) of sapphire.
Their aspect is darker than dusk, they are not known in the streets;{HR}Their skin cleaveth to their bones, it is dried up like a stick.
Happier the slain with the sword than the slain with hunger;{HR}Because these pine away pierced through for the fruits of the field.
The hands of pitiful women boiled their children;{HR}They became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Jehovah hath spent his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger,{HR}And hath kindled a fire in Zion which hath devoured her foundations.
The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world,{HR}Would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
Because of the sins of her prophets,{HR}The iniquities of her priests that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
They wandered blind in the streets, they were defiled with blood,{HR}So that men could not touch their garments.
Depart, unclean, they called out to them; depart, depart, touch not.{HR}So they flee away and also wander. They say among the nations, they shall dwell no more [there].
The face of Jehovah hath divided them, he will no more regard them:{HR}They respected not the faces of the priests, they spared not the elders.
As yet for us, our eyes failed for our vain help;{HR}On our watchtowers we watched for a nation that could not save us.
They hunted our steps, so that we could not walk in our streets;{HR}Our end was near, our days were fulfilled, for our end had come.
Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven:{HR}They pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah, was taken in their pits,{HR}Of whom was said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz;{HR}The cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion;{HR}He will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity,{HR}O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.