4. The roads to Zion mourn for no one comes to her moadim. All her gates are desolate. Her kohanim groan, her maidens grieve— she is in bitter anguish.
5. Her foes have become her masters. Her enemies are at ease. For Adonai has afflicted her, because of her many transgressions. Her children have gone away as captives before the adversary.
6. All her splendor has departed, from the daughter of Zion. Her princes are like stags that find no pasture. They have fled without strength before the pursuer.
7. In the days of her affliction and her wandering, Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers from the days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands, there was no one to help her. Her enemies saw her and mocked at her destruction.
8. Jerusalem has greatly sinned— therefore, she has become niddah . All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness. She herself groans, and turns away.
9. Her uncleanness was in her skirts. She did not consider her future. Her demise was astonishing, there was no one to comfort her. “Adonai, see my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!”
10. The enemy has stretched his hand over all her treasures. She even saw nations enter her sanctuary— those You had commanded not to enter Your congregation.
11. All her people groan, as they seek bread. They traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. “Look, Adonai, and see! For I have become despised!”
12. “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by on the road? Look and see! Is any suffering like my suffering that was brought on me, that Adonai has inflicted in the day of His fierce anger?
13. From on high He sent fire into my bones and it overcame them. He spread out a net for my feet; He turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.
14. My transgressions are bound into a yoke, woven together by His hand. They have come upon my neck and He has sapped my strength. The Lord delivered me over to those I cannot withstand.
15. The Lord has rejected all the mighty ones in my midst. He has summoned an assembly against me to crush my young men. In a winepress the Lord has trampled the virgin daughter of Judah.