LAMENTATION 1

1 How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How she has become as a widow! She that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, how she has become tributary!

² She weepeth sorely 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 have become her enemies.

³ Judah has 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 in her straits.

⁴ The highways 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 master, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her. For the multitude of her transgressions, her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.

⁶ And from the daughter of Zion, all her beauty is departed; her princes have become like harts that find no pasture, and they have 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 mocked at her Sabbaths.

⁸ Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she has become a wanderer. All that honored 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 wondrously; 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 have 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 up 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 wine press.

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 proclaimed, and they shall then 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.”

LAMENTATION 2

1 How the Lord hath 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 strongholds 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 strongholds, 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 soul is troubled; my passion is poured upon the earth, because of 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 exposed thine iniquity, to return you from 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 their 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 on top of every street.

²⁰ Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom Thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, their 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.

1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;

² The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.

³ Honour widows that are widows indeed.

⁴ But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God.

⁵ Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day.

⁶ But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.

⁷ And these things give in charge, that they may be blameless.

⁸ But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

⁹ Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man.

¹⁰ Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.

¹¹ But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;

¹² Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.

¹³ And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.

¹⁴ I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.

¹⁵ For some are already turned aside after Satan.

¹⁶ If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.

¹⁷ Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.

¹⁸ For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.

¹⁹ Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.

²⁰ Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.

²¹ I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.

²² Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.

²³ Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.

²⁴ Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.

²⁵ Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid.