Lamentations

Alas!
Lonely sits the city
Once great with people!
She that was great among nations
Is become like a widow;
The princess among states
Is become a thrall.
Bitterly she weeps in the night,
Her cheek wet with tears.
There is none to comfort her
Of all her friends...

All her inhabitants sigh
As they search for bread;
They have bartered their treasures for food,
To keep themselves alive. --
See, O Lord, and behold,
How abject I have become! ...

Her gates have sunk into the ground,
He has smashed her bars to bits...

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.
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....

My eyes shall flow without cease,
Without respite.

(1:1-2, 12; 2:9, 11-12; 3:49)