As much as she hath glorified herself, and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to her; because she saith in her heart: I sit a queen, and am no widow; and sorrow I shall not see.
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!
And I will take away from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill and the light of the lamp.
Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced city, and let us be silent there. For the Lord our God hath put us to silence and hath given us water of gall to drink: for we have sinned against the Lord.
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.
For the stars of heaven and their brightness shall not display their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with her light.
Behold, this man cometh, the rider upon the chariot with two horsemen. And he answered and said: Babylon is fallen, she is fallen, and all the graven gods thereof are broken unto the ground.
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.