Lamentations 4 - Christian Standard Bible Anglicised Christian Standard Bible Anglicised
Lamentations 4

¹ How the gold has become tarnished, the fine gold become dull! The stones of the temple  lie scattered at the head of every street.

² Zion’s precious children – once worth their weight in pure gold   – how they are regarded as clay jars, the work of a potter’s hands!

³ Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but my dear people have become cruel like ostriches  in the wilderness.

⁴ The nursing baby’s tongue clings to the roof of his mouth from thirst. Infants beg for food, but no one gives them any.

⁵ Those who used to eat delicacies are destitute in the streets; those who were brought up in purple garments huddle in rubbish heaps.

⁶ The punishment of my dear people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand laid on it.

⁷ Her dignitaries were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies  were more ruddy than coral, their appearance like lapis lazuli.

⁸ Now they appear darker than soot; they are not recognised in the streets. Their skin has shrivelled on their bones; it has become dry like wood.

⁹ Those slain by the sword are better off than those slain by hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.

¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children; they became their food during the destruction of my dear people.

¹¹ The Lord has exhausted his wrath, poured out his burning anger; he has ignited a fire in Zion, and it has consumed her foundations.

¹² The kings of the earth and all the world’s inhabitants did not believe that an enemy or adversary could enter Jerusalem’s gates.

¹³ Yet it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous within her.

¹⁴ Blind, they stumbled in the streets, defiled by this blood, so that no one dared to touch their garments.

¹⁵ ‘Stay away! Unclean! ’ people shouted at them. ‘Away, away! Don’t touch us! ’ So they wandered aimlessly. It was said among the nations, ‘They can stay here no longer.’

¹⁶ The Lord himself has scattered them; he no longer watches over them. The priests are not respected; the elders find no favour.

¹⁷ All the while our eyes were failing as we looked in vain for help; we watched from our towers for a nation that would not save us.

¹⁸ Our steps were closely followed so that we could not walk in our streets. Our end approached;  our time ran out. Our end had come!

¹⁹ Those who chased us were swifter than eagles in the sky; they relentlessly pursued us over the mountains and ambushed us in the wilderness.

²⁰ The Lord’s anointed, the breath of our life,  , was captured in their traps. We had said about him, ‘We will live under his protection among the nations.’

²¹ So rejoice and be glad, Daughter Edom, you resident of the land of Uz! Yet the cup  will pass to you as well; you will get drunk and expose yourself.

²² Daughter Zion, your punishment is complete; he will not lengthen your exile. But he will punish your iniquity, Daughter Edom, and will expose your sins.