28These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away:

in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

29in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem;

30in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried away 745 Jews.

So in all, 4,600 people were taken away.

How Lonely Lies the City!

1How lonely lies the city,

once so full of people!

She who was great among the nations

has become a widow.

The princess of the provinces

has become a slave.

2She weeps aloud in the night,

with tears upon her cheeks.

Among all her lovers

there is no one to comfort her.

All her friends have betrayed her;

they have become her enemies.

3Judah has gone into exile

under affliction and harsh slavery;

she dwells among the nations

but finds no place to rest.

All her pursuers have overtaken her

in the midst of her distress.

4The roads to Zion mourn,

because no one comes to her appointed feasts.

All her gates are deserted;

her priests groan,

her maidens grieve,

and she herself is bitter with anguish.

5Her foes have become her masters;

her enemies are at ease.

For the LORD has brought her grief

because of her many transgressions.

Her children have gone away

as captives before the enemy.

6All the splendor has departed

from the Daughter of Zion.

Her princes are like deer

that find no pasture;

they lack the strength to flee

in the face of the hunter.

7In the days of her affliction and wandering

Jerusalem remembers all the treasures

that were hers in days of old.

When her people fell into enemy hands

she received no help.

Her enemies looked upon her,

laughing at her downfall.

8Jerusalem has sinned greatly;

therefore she has become an object of scorn.

All who honored her now despise her,

for they have seen her nakedness;

she herself groans and turns away.

9Her uncleanness stains her skirts;

she did not consider her end.

Her downfall was astounding;

there was no one to comfort her.

Look, O LORD, on my affliction,

for the enemy has triumphed!

10The adversary has seized

all her treasures.

For she has seen the nations

enter her sanctuary—

those You had forbidden

to enter Your assembly.

11All her people groan

as they search for bread.

They have traded their treasures for food

to keep themselves alive.

Look, O LORD, and consider,

for I have become despised.

12Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by?

Look around and see!

Is there any sorrow like mine,

which was inflicted on me,

which the LORD made me suffer

on the day of His fierce anger?

13He sent fire from on high,

and it overpowered my bones.

He spread a net for my feet

and turned me back.

He made me desolate,

faint all the day long.

14My transgressions are bound into a yoke,

knit together by His hand;

they are draped over my neck,

and the Lord has broken my strength.

He has delivered me into the hands

of those I cannot withstand.

15The Lord has rejected

all the mighty men in my midst;

He has summoned an army against me

to crush my young warriors.

Like grapes in a winepress,

the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah.

16For these things I weep;

my eyes flow with tears.

For there is no one nearby to comfort me,

no one to revive my soul.

My children are destitute

because the enemy has prevailed.

17Zion stretches out her hands,

but there is no one to comfort her.

The LORD has decreed against Jacob

that his neighbors become his foes.

Jerusalem has become

an unclean thing among them.

18The LORD is righteous,

for I have rebelled against His command.

Listen, all you people;

look upon my suffering.

My young men and maidens

have gone into captivity.

19I called out to my lovers,

but they have betrayed me.

My priests and elders

perished in the city

while they searched for food

to keep themselves alive.

20See, O LORD, how distressed I am!

I am churning within;

my heart is pounding within me,

for I have been most rebellious.

Outside, the sword bereaves;

inside, there is death.

21People have heard my groaning,

but there is no one to comfort me.

All my enemies have heard of my trouble;

they are glad that You have caused it.

May You bring the day You have announced,

so that they may become like me.

22Let all their wickedness come before You,

and deal with them

as You have dealt with me

because of all my transgressions.

For my groans are many,

and my heart is faint.

God’s Anger over Jerusalem

1How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion

with the cloud of His anger!

He has cast the glory of Israel

from heaven to earth.

He has abandoned His footstool

in the day of His anger.

2Without pity the Lord has swallowed up

all the dwellings of Jacob.

In His wrath He has demolished

the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah.

He brought to the ground and defiled

her kingdom and its princes.

3In fierce anger He has cut off

every horn of Israel

and withdrawn His right hand

at the approach of the enemy.

He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire

that consumes everything around it.

4He has bent His bow like an enemy;

His right hand is positioned.

Like a foe He has killed

all who were pleasing to the eye;

He has poured out His wrath like fire

on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

5The Lord is like an enemy;

He has swallowed up Israel.

He has swallowed up all her palaces

and destroyed her strongholds.

He has multiplied mourning and lamentation

for the Daughter of Judah.

6He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth;

He has destroyed His place of meeting.

The LORD has made Zion forget

her appointed feasts and Sabbaths.

In His fierce anger

He has despised both king and priest.

7The Lord has rejected His altar;

He has abandoned His sanctuary;

He has delivered the walls of her palaces

into the hand of the enemy.

They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD

as on the day of an appointed feast.

8The LORD determined to destroy

the wall of the Daughter of Zion.

He stretched out a measuring line

and did not withdraw His hand from destroying.

He made the ramparts and walls lament;

together they waste away.

9Her gates have sunk into the ground;

He has destroyed and shattered their bars.

Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations,

the law is no more,

and even her prophets

find no vision from the LORD.

10The elders of the Daughter of Zion

sit on the ground in silence.

They have thrown dust on their heads

and put on sackcloth.

The young women of Jerusalem

have bowed their heads to the ground.

11My eyes fail from weeping;

I am churning within.

My heart is poured out in grief

over the destruction of the daughter of my people,

because children and infants faint

in the streets of the city.

12They cry out to their mothers:

“Where is the grain and wine?”

as they faint like the wounded

in the streets of the city,

as their lives fade away

in the arms of their mothers.

13What can I say for you?

To what can I compare you,

O Daughter of Jerusalem?

To what can I liken you,

that I may console you,

O Virgin Daughter of Zion?

For your wound is as deep as the sea.

Who can ever heal you?

14The visions of your prophets

were empty and deceptive;

they did not expose your guilt

to ward off your captivity.

The burdens they envisioned for you

were empty and misleading.

15All who pass by

clap their hands at you in scorn.

They hiss and shake their heads

at the Daughter of Jerusalem:

“Is this the city that was called

the perfection of beauty,

the joy of all the earth?”

16All your enemies

open their mouths against you.

They hiss and gnash their teeth,

saying, “We have swallowed her up.

This is the day for which we have waited.

We have lived to see it!”

17The LORD has done what He planned;

He has accomplished His decree,

which He ordained in days of old;

He has overthrown you without pity.

He has let the enemy gloat over you

and exalted the horn of your foes.

18The hearts of the people

cry out to the Lord.

O wall of the Daughter of Zion,

let your tears run down like a river

day and night.

Give yourself no relief,

and your eyes no rest.

19Arise, cry out in the night

from the first watch of the night.

Pour out your heart like water

in the presence of the Lord.

Lift up your hands to Him

for the lives of your children

who are fainting from hunger

on the corner of every street.

20Look, O LORD, and consider:

Whom have You ever treated like this?

Should women eat their offspring,

the infants they have nurtured?

Should priests and prophets be killed

in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21Both young and old lie together

in the dust of the streets.

My young men and maidens

have fallen by the sword.

You have slain them in the day of Your anger;

You have slaughtered them without compassion.

22You summoned my attackers on every side,

as for the day of an appointed feast.

In the day of the LORD’s anger

no one escaped or survived;

my enemy has destroyed

those I nurtured and reared.

The Prophet’s Afflictions

1I am the man who has seen affliction

under the rod of God’s wrath.

2He has driven me away and made me walk

in darkness instead of light.

3Indeed, He keeps turning His hand

against me all day long.

4He has worn away my flesh and skin;

He has shattered my bones.

5He has besieged me and surrounded me

with bitterness and hardship.

6He has made me dwell in darkness

like those dead for ages.

7He has walled me in so I cannot escape;

He has weighed me down with chains.

8Even when I cry out and plead for help,

He shuts out my prayer.

9He has barred my ways with cut stones;

He has made my paths crooked.

10He is a bear lying in wait,

a lion hiding in ambush.