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!
Aleph. How hath the Lord covered with obscurity the daughter of Sion in his wrath! How hath he cast down from heaven to the earth the glorious one of Israel and hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger!
Sade. The Lord is just, for I have provoked his mouth to wrath: hear, I pray you, all ye people, and see my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
Heth. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore is she become unstable: all that honoured her have despised her, because they have seen her shame: but she sighed and turned backward.
Thy own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee. Know thou, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not with thee, saith the Lord, the God of hosts.
Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil will cast some of you into prison that you may be tried: and you shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful until death: and I will give thee the crown of life.
And they gathered together to Masphath. And they drew water, and poured it out before the Lord; and they fasted on that day, and they said there: We have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Masphath.
And they came in and possessed it: but they obeyed not thy voice and they walked not in thy law. And they did not any of those things that thou didst command them to do: and all these evils are come upon them.
Res. Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled: my heart is turned within me, for I am full of bitterness: abroad the sword destroyeth and at home there is death alike.