Lamentations 4:1-12

The Punishment of Zion Accomplished

4¹ How is the gold become dim, Changed the best—the pure gold? Poured out are stones of the sanctuary At the head of all out-places. ² The precious sons of Zion, Who are comparable with fine gold, How have they been reckoned earthen bottles, Work of the hands of a potter. ³ Even dragons have drawn out the breast, They have suckled their young ones, The daughter of my people is become cruel, Like the ostriches in a wilderness. ⁴ Cleaved hath the tongue of a suckling unto his palate with thirst, Infants asked bread, a dealer out they have none. ⁵ Those eating of dainties have been desolate in out-places, Those supported on scarlet have embraced dunghills. ⁶ And greater is the iniquity of the daughter of my people, Than the sin of Sodom, That was overturned as 'in' a moment, And no hands were stayed on her. ⁷ Purer were her Nazarites than snow, Whiter than milk, ruddier of body than rubies, Of sapphire their form. ⁸ Darker than blackness hath been their visage, They have not been known in out-places, Cleaved hath their skin unto their bone, It hath withered—it hath been as wood. ⁹ Better have been the pierced of a sword Than the pierced of famine, For these flow away, pierced through, Without the increase of the field. ¹⁰ The hands of merciful women have boiled their own children, They have been for food to them, In the destruction of the daughter of my people. ¹¹ Completed hath Jehovah His fury, He hath poured out the fierceness of His anger, And he kindleth a fire in Zion, And it devoureth her foundations. ¹² Believe not did the kings of earth, And any of the inhabitants of the world, That come would an adversary and enemy Into the gates of Jerusalem.