Lamentations 1:4-14

4 The roads to Tziyon are mourning because no one comes to the festivals. Her gateways are all deserted, her cohanim are groaning, her unmarried girls are grieving -how bitter it is for her!
5 Her foes have become the head, her enemies relax, for ADONAI has made her suffer because of her many sins. Her young children have gone away captive before the foe.
6 All splendor has departed from the daughter of Tziyon. Her princes have become like deer unable to find pasture, running on, exhausted, fleeing from the hunter.
7 In the days of her affliction and anguish, Yerushalayim remembers all the treasures that were hers, ever since ancient times. Now her people fall into the power of the foe, and she has no one to help her; her enemies are gloating over her, mocking her desolation.
8 Yerushalayim sinned grievously; therefore she has become unclean. All who honored her now despise her, because they have seen her naked. She herself also moans and turns her face away.
9 Her filthiness was in her skirts; she gave no thought to how it would end. Hence her astounding downfall, with no one to console her. "Look, ADONAI, how I suffer; for the foe has triumphed!"
10 Enemies have reached out their hands to seize all her treasures. She has seen Goyim approach and go inside her sanctuary, those whom you forbade even to enter your assembly.
11 All her people are groaning, as they search for something to eat. They barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. "Look, ADONAI! See how despised I am.
12 "May it not happen to you, all you passers-by! Just look, and see if there is any pain like the pain inflicted on me, which ADONAI made me suffer on the day of his blazing anger.
13 "From on high, he sent down fire deep into my bones; he spread a net to catch my feet; he turned me back; he left me desolate, in misery all day long.
14 "My sins have been bound into a yoke, knit together by his hand. It weighs down on my neck, and it saps my strength. Adonai has put me into the power of those I cannot withstand.
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.