Jod. The ancients of the daughter of Sion sit upon the ground, they have held their peace: they have sprinkled their heads with dust, they are girded with haircloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
Daleth. The ways of Sion mourn, because there are none that come to the solemn feast: all her gates are broken down: her priests sigh: her virgins are in affliction and she is oppressed with bitterness.
And beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee: and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone: because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation.
Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and take off their robes and cast away their broidered garments and be clothed with astonishment: they shall sit on the ground and with amazement shall wonder at thy sudden fall.
COME down, sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon: sit on the ground. There is no throne for the daughter of the Chaldeans, for thou shalt no more be called delicate and tender.
And I said: How long, O Lord? And he said: Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land shall be left desolate.
Their widows are multiplied unto me above the sand of the sea: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young man a spoiler at noonday: I have cast a terror on a sudden upon the cities.
Aleph. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How is the mistress of the Gentiles become as a widow: the princes of provinces made tributary!
Heth. The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Sion: he hath stretched out his line and hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: and the bulwark hath mourned, and the wall hath been destroyed together.
For the house is forsaken, the multitude of the city is left, darkness and obscurity are come upon its dens for ever: a joy of wild asses, the pastures of flocks,