Lamentations
Bible, King James Version
Lamentations
Lam.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.
Lam.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.
Lam.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.
Lam.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.
Lam.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.
