Ekha, starting at chapter 1
{1:1} How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
{1:2} She weeps sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks;
Among all her lovers she has none to comfort her:
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her
enemies.
{1:3} Yehudah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and
because of great servitude;
She dwells among the nations, she finds no rest:
All her persecutors overtook her within the straits.
{1:4} The ways of Tziyon do mourn, because none come to the solemn
assembly;
All her gates are desolate, her [1>]Kohanim[<1] do sigh:
Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
{1:5} Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper;
For the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.
{1:6} From the daughter of Tziyon all her majesty is departed:
Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
They are gone without strength before the pursuer.
{1:7} Yerushalayim remembers in the days of her affliction and of her
miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old:
When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help
her,
The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations.
{1:8} Yerushalayim has grievously sinned; therefore she is become as
an unclean thing;
All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:
Yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
{1:9} Her filthiness was in her skirts; she didn't remember her latter
end;
Therefore is she come down wonderfully; she has no comforter:
See, LORD, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.
{1:10} The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant
things:
For she has seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary,
Concerning whom you did command that they should not enter into your
assembly.
{1:11} All her people sigh, they seek bread;
They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul:
Look, LORD, and see; for I am become abject.
{1:12} Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look, and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought
on me,
With which the LORD has afflicted [me] in the day of his fierce anger.
{1:13} From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails
against them;
He has spread a net for my feet, he has turned me back:
He has made me desolate and faint all the day.
{1:14} The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand;
They are knit together, they are come up on my neck; he has made my
strength to fail:
The Lord has delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able
to stand.
{1:15} The Lord has set at nothing all my mighty men in the midst of
me;
He has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men:
The Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Yehudah.
{1:16} For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water;
Because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me:
My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.
{1:17} Tziyon spreads forth her hands; there is none to comfort her;
The LORD has commanded concerning Ya`akov, that those who are round
about him should be his adversaries:
Yerushalayim is among them as an unclean thing.
{1:18} The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his
[2>]mitzvah[<2]:
Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow:
My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
{1:19} I called for my lovers, [but] they deceived me:
My [3>]Kohanim[<3] and my Zakenim gave up the spirit in the city,
While they sought them food to refresh their souls.
{1:20} See, LORD; for I am in distress; my heart is troubled;
My heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
Abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is as death.
{1:21} They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me;
All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have
done it:
You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they shall be
like me.
{1:22} Let all their wickedness come before you;
Do to them, as you have done to me for all my transgressions:
For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
{2:1} How has the Lord covered the daughter of Tziyon with a cloud in
his anger!
He has cast down from heaven to the [1>]eretz[<1] the beauty of
Yisra'el,
And hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
{2:2} The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Ya`akov, and
has not pitied:
He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of
Yehudah;
He has brought them down to the ground; he has profaned the kingdom
and the princes of it.
{2:3} He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Yisra'el;
He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy:
He has burned up Ya`akov like a flaming fire, which devours round
about.
{2:4} He has bent his bow like an enemy, he has stood with his right
hand as an adversary,
Has killed all that were pleasant to the eye:
In the tent of the daughter of Tziyon he has poured out his wrath like
fire.
{2:5} The Lord is become as an enemy, he has swallowed up Yisra'el;
He has swallowed up all her palaces, he has destroyed his strongholds;
He has multiplied in the daughter of Yehudah mourning and lamentation.
{2:6} He has violently taken away his tent, as if it were of a garden;
he has destroyed his place of assembly:
The LORD has caused solemn assembly and Shabbat to be forgotten in
Tziyon,
Has despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the
[2>]Kohen[<2].
{2:7} The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary;
He has 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 assembly.
{2:8} The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of
Tziyon;
He has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from
destroying;
He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
{2:9} Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken
her bars:
Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not;
Yes, her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
{2:10} The Zakenim of the daughter of Tziyon sit on the ground, they
keep silence;
They have cast up dust on their heads; they have girded themselves
with sackcloth:
The virgins of Yerushalayim hang down their heads to the ground.
{2:11} My eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled;
My liver is poured on the [3>]eretz[<3], because of the destruction of
the daughter of my people,
Because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the
city.
{2:12} They tell their mothers, Where is grain and wine?
When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city,
When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
{2:13} What shall I testify to you? what shall I liken to you,
daughter of Yerushalayim?
What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter
of Tziyon?
For your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?
{2:14} Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions;
They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captivity,
But have seen for you false oracles and causes of banishment.
{2:15} All that pass by clap their hands at you;
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Yerushalayim, [saying],
Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of
the whole [4>]eretz[<4]?
{2:16} All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you;
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.
{2:17} The LORD has done that which he purposed; he has fulfilled his
word that he commanded in the days of old;
He has thrown down, and has not pitied:
He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; he has exalted the horn
of your adversaries.
{2:18} Their heart cried to the Lord:
wall of the daughter of Tziyon, let tears run down like a river day
and night;
Give yourself no respite; don't let the apple of your eye cease.
{2:19} 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 toward him for the life of your young children,
that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
{2:20} Look, LORD, and see to whom you have done thus!
Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the
hands?
Shall the [5>]Kohen[<5] and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of
the Lord?
{2:21} The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets;
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword:
You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered,
[and] not pitied.
{2:22} You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors
on every side;
There was none that escaped or remained in the day of the LORD's anger:
Those that I have dandled and brought up has my enemy consumed.
{3:1} I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
{3:2} He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in
light.
{3:3} Surely against me he turns his hand again and again all the day.
{3:4} My flesh and my skin has he made old; he has broken my bones.
{3:5} He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
{3:6} He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been
long dead.
{3:7} He has walled me about, that I can't go forth; he has made my
chain heavy.
{3:8} Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
{3:9} He has walled up my ways with hewn stone; he has made my paths
crooked.
{3:10} He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.
{3:11} He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he has
made me desolate.
{3:12} He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
{3:13} He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my reins.
{3:14} I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the
day.
{3:15} He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
{3:16} He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered
me with ashes.
{3:17} You have removed my soul far off from shalom; I forgot
prosperity.
{3:18} I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from the
LORD.
{3:19} Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
{3:20} My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
{3:21} This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope.
{3:22} [It is of] the LORD's lovingkindnesses that we are not
consumed, because his compassion doesn't fail.
{3:23} They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
{3:24} The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in
him.
{3:25} The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that
seeks him.
{3:26} It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the
salvation of the LORD.
{3:27} It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
{3:28} Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on
him.
{3:29} Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope.
{3:30} Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be
filled full with reproach.
{3:31} For the Lord will not cast off forever.
{3:32} For though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion
according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses.
{3:33} For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of
men.
{3:34} To crush under foot all the prisoners of the [1>]eretz[<1],
{3:35} To turn aside the right of a man before the face of
[2>]Ha`Elyon[<2],
{3:36} To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn't approve.
{3:37} Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn't
command it?
{3:38} Doesn't evil and good come out of the mouth of [3>]Ha`Elyon[<3]?
{3:39} Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his
sins?
{3:40} Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
{3:41} Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
{3:42} We have transgressed and have rebelled; you have not pardoned.
{3:43} You have covered with anger and pursued us; you have killed,
you have not pitied.
{3:44} You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can
pass through.
{3:45} You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the
peoples.
{3:46} All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
{3:47} Fear and the pit are come on us, devastation and destruction.
{3:48} My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of
the daughter of my people.
{3:49} My eye pours down, and doesn't cease, without any intermission,
{3:50} Until the LORD look down, and see from heaven.
{3:51} My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
{3:52} They have chased me sore like a bird, those who are my enemies
without cause.
{3:53} They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone
on me.
{3:54} Waters flowed over my head; I said, I am cut off.
{3:55} I called on your name, LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.
{3:56} You heard my voice; don't hide your ear at my breathing, at my
cry.
{3:57} You drew near in the day that I called on you; you said, Don't
be afraid.
{3:58} Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed
my life.
{3:59} LORD, you have seen my wrong; judge you my cause.
{3:60} You have seen all their vengeance and all their devices against
me.
{3:61} You have heard their reproach, LORD, and all their devices
against me,
{3:62} The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device
against me all the day.
{3:63} See you their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their
song.
{3:64} You will render to them a recompense, LORD, according to the
work of their hands.
{3:65} You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.
{3:66} You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the
heavens of the LORD.
________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
[1] {1:4} priests
[2] {1:18} commandment
[3] {1:19} priests
[1] {2:1} earth
[2] {2:6} priest
[3] {2:11} earth
[4] {2:15} earth
[5] {2:20} priest
[1] {3:34} earth
[2] {3:35} the Most High
[3] {3:38} the Most High
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