Eicha - Lamentations (excerpts from chapters 1-5 and a new chapter 6 from HIAS)

(1) Alas! Lonely sits the city

Once great with people!

She has become like a widow

Who once was great among nations;

The princess among states

has become a thrall.

(2) Bitterly she weeps in the night,

Her cheek wet with tears.

There is none to comfort her

Of all her friends.

All her allies have betrayed her;

They have become her foes.

(3) Judah has gone into exile

Because of misery and harsh oppression;

When she settled among the nations,

She found no rest;

All her pursuers overtook her

In the narrow places.

(4) Zion’s roads are in mourning,

Empty of festival pilgrims;

All her gates are deserted.

Her priests sigh, Her maidens are unhappy— She is utterly disconsolate!

(5) Her enemies are now the masters,

Her foes are at ease,

Because the Eternal has afflicted her

For her many transgressions;

Her infants have gone into captivity

Before the enemy.

(10) Silent sit on the ground

The elders of Fair Zion;

They have strewn dust on their heads

And girded themselves with sackcloth;

The maidens of Jerusalem have bowed

Their heads to the ground.

(11) My eyes are spent with tears,

My heart is in tumult,

My being melts away

Over the ruin of my poor people,

As babes and sucklings languish

In the squares of the city.

(12) They keep asking their mothers,

“Where is bread and wine?”

As they languish like battle-wounded

In the squares of the town,

As their life runs out

In their mothers’ bosoms.

(1) I am the man who has known affliction

Under the rod of God's wrath;

(2) God drove me on and on

In darkness without light;

(3) On me alone God brings down a hand

Again and again, without cease.

(4) God has worn away my flesh and skin; God has shattered my bones.

(5) All around me God has built

Misery and hardship;

(6) God has made me dwell in darkness,

Like those long dead.

(16) God has broken my teeth on gravel,

Has ground me into the dust,

(17) Bereaved my life of peace;

I forgot what happiness was.

(18) I thought my strength had perished;

Yet I waited for the Eternal.

(19) To recall my distress and my misery Was wormwood and poison;

(20) Whenever I thought of them,

I was bowed low.

(21) But this do I call to mind,

Therefore I have hope:

(22) God's kindness has not ended,

God's mercies are not over.

(23) They are renewed every morning—

Ample is Your faithfulness!

(24) “The Eternal is my portion,”

I say with full heart;

Therefore will I hope in God.

(40) Let us search and examine our ways,

And turn back to the Eternal;

(41) Let us lift up our hearts with our hands

To God in heaven:

(42) We have transgressed and rebelled,

And You have not forgiven.

(49) My eyes shall flow without cease,

Without respite,

(50) Until the Eternal looks down

And beholds from heaven.

(51) My eyes have brought me distress

Over all the maidens of my city.

(52) My foes have snared me like a bird,

Without any cause.

(53) They have ended my life in a pit

And cast stones at me.

(54) Waters flowed over my head;

I said: I am lost!

(55) I have called on Your name, Eternal,

From the depths of the Pit.

(56) Hear my plea; Do not shut Your ear

To my groan, to my cry!

(57) You draw close when I call You;

You say, “Do not fear!”

(58) You championed my cause, Eternal,

You have redeemed my life.

(59) You have seen, Eternal, the wrong done me;

Oh, vindicate my right!

(60) You have seen all their malice,

All their designs against me;

(61) You have heard, Eternal, their taunts, All their designs against me,

(62) The mouthing and babbling of my opponents

Against me all day long.

(63) See how, at their ease or at work,

I am the butt of their jokes.

(64) Give them, Eternal, their deserts

According to their deeds.

(65) Give them anguish of heart;

Your curse be upon them!

(66) Pursue in wrath and destroy them

From under the heavens of the Eternal!

(1) Alas! The gold is dulled,

Debased the finest gold!

The sacred gems are spilled

At every street corner.

(2) The precious children of Zion;

Once valued as gold—

Alas, they are accounted as earthen pots,

Work of a potter’s hands!

(3) Even jackals offer the breast

And suckle their young;

But my poor people has turned cruel,

Like ostriches of the desert.

(4) The tongue of the suckling cleaves

To its palate for thirst.

Little children beg for bread;

None gives them a morsel.

(5) Those who feasted on dainties

Lie famished in the streets;

Those who were reared in purple

Have embraced refuse heaps.

(6) The guilt of my poor people

Exceeded the iniquity of Sodom,

Which was overthrown in a moment,

Without a hand striking it.

(7) Her elect were purer than snow,

Whiter than milk;

Their limbs were ruddier than coral,

Their bodies were like sapphire.

(8) Now their faces are blacker than soot,

They are not recognized in the streets;

Their skin has shriveled on their bones,

It has become dry as wood.

(9) Better off were the slain by the sword

Than those slain by famine,

Who pined away, [as though] wounded,

For lack of the fruits of the field.

(10) The hands of compassionate women Have cooked their children;

Such became their fare,

In the disaster of my poor people.

(12) The kings of the earth did not believe,

Nor any of the inhabitants of the world,

That foe or adversary could enter

The gates of Jerusalem.

(13) It was for the sins of her prophets,

The iniquities of her priests,

Who had shed in her midst

The blood of the just.

(1) Remember, Eternal, what has befallen us; Behold, and see our disgrace!

(7) Our ancestors sinned and are no more;

And we must bear their guilt.

(8) Slaves are ruling over us,

With none to rescue us from them.

(20) Why have You forgotten us utterly, Forsaken us for all time?

(21) Take us back, Eternal to Yourself,

And let us come back;

Renew our days as of old!

(22) For truly, You have rejected us, Bitterly raged against us.

[Take us back, Eternal, to Yourself,

And let us come back;

Renew our days as of old!]