Lamentations

¹ How gold is treated like dirt, the finest gold thrown out with the garbage, Priceless jewels scattered all over, jewels loose in the gutters.

² far surpassing their weight in gold, Are now treated like cheap pottery, like everyday pots and bowls mass-produced by a potter.

³ give them their breasts to suckle. But my people have turned cruel to their babies, like an ostrich in the wilderness.

⁴ Their tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths. Little children ask for bread but no one gives them so much as a crust.

⁵ forage for food in the streets. People used to the latest in fashions pick through the trash for something to wear.

⁶ was worse than the sin of Sodom— The city was destroyed in a flash, and no one around to help.

⁷ once glowed with health. Their bodies were robust and ruddy, their beards like carved stone.

⁸ unrecognizable in the street, Their bones sticking out, their skin dried out like old leather.

⁹ than killed by starvation. Better to have died of battle wounds than to slowly starve to death.

¹⁰ boiled their own children for supper. This was the only food in town when my dear people were broken.

¹¹ He poured out his raging wrath. He set a fire in Zion that burned it to the ground.

¹² World rulers were in shock, Watching old enemies march in big as you please, right through Jerusalem's gates.

¹³ and the evil of her priests, Who exploited good and trusting people, robbing them of their lives,

¹⁴ grimy and stained from their dirty lives, Wasted by their wasted lives, shuffling from fatigue, dressed in rags.

¹⁵ Get lost, don't touch us, don't infect us!" They have to leave town. They wander off. Nobody wants them to stay here. Everyone knows, wherever they wander, that they've been kicked out of their own hometown.

¹⁶ No longer does he look out for them. He has nothing to do with the priests; he cares nothing for the elders.

¹⁷ wore our eyes out looking for help. And nothing. We mounted our lookouts and looked for the help that never showed up.

¹⁸ It wasn't safe to go out in the street. Our end was near, our days numbered. We were doomed.

¹⁹ pressed us hard in the mountains, ambushed us in the desert.

²⁰ was caught in their traps— Our king under whose protection we always said we'd live.

²¹ Live it up in Uz! For it won't be long before you drink this cup, too. You'll find out what it's like to drink God's wrath, Get drunk on God's wrath and wake up with nothing, stripped naked.

²² You won't have to go through this exile again. But Edom, your time is coming: He'll punish your evil life, put all your sins on display.