How Lonely Sits the City
1 How lonely sits the city
that was full of people!
How like a awidow has she become,
she who was great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces
has become a slave.
2 She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears on her cheeks;
among all her blovers
she has none to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
they have become her enemies.
3 Judah has gone into exile because of affliction1
and hard servitude;
she dwells now among the nations,
but finds cno resting place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress.2
4 The droads to Zion mourn,
for none come to the festival;
all her gates are desolate;
her priests groan;
her virgins have been afflicted,3
and she herself suffers bitterly.
5 Her foes have become the ehead;
her enemies prosper,
because the Lord has afflicted her
for the multitude of her transgressions;
fher children have gone away,
captives before the foe.
6 From the daughter of Zion
all her majesty has departed.
Her princes have become like deer
that find no pasture;
they fled without strength
before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembers
in the days of her affliction and wandering
all the gprecious things
that were hers from days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the foe,
and there was none to hhelp her,
her foes gloated over her;
they mocked at her downfall.
8 Jerusalem sinned grievously;
therefore she became filthy;
all who honored her despise her,
for they have iseen her nakedness;
she herself groans
and turns her face away.
9 Her uncleanness was in her skirts;
she took no thought of her future;4
therefore her fall is terrible;
she has no comforter.
“O Lord, behold my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed!”
10 The enemy has stretched out his hands
over all her precious things;
for she has seen the nations
jenter her sanctuary,
those whom you kforbade
to enter your congregation.
11 lAll her people groan
as they search for bread;
they trade their treasures for food
to revive their strength.
“Look, O Lord, and see,
for I am despised.”
12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
which was brought upon me,
which the Lord inflicted
on the day of his fierce anger.
13 “From on high he sent fire;
into my bones5 he made it descend;
he spread a net for my feet;
he turned me back;
he has left me stunned,
faint all the day long.
14 “My transgressions were bound6 into a myoke;
by his hand they were fastened together;
they were set upon my neck;
he caused my strength to fail;
the Lord gave me into the hands
of those whom I cannot withstand.
15 “The Lord rejected
all my mighty men in my midst;
he summoned an assembly against me
to crush my young men;
the Lord has trodden as in a winepress
the virgin daughter of Judah.
16 “For these things nI weep;
my eyes flow with tears;
for a comforter is far from me,
one to revive my spirit;
my children are desolate,
for the enemy has prevailed.”
17 Zion ostretches out her hands,
but there is none to comfort her;
the Lord has commanded against Jacob
that his neighbors should be his foes;
Jerusalem has become
a filthy thing among them.
18 “The Lord is pin the right,
for I have rebelled against his word;
but hear, all you peoples,
and see my suffering;
qmy young women and my young men
have gone into captivity.
19 “I called to my lovers,
but they deceived me;
my priests and elders
perished in the city,
while they sought food
to revive their strength.
20 “Look, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my stomach churns;
my heart is wrung within me,
because I have been very rebellious.
rIn the street the sword bereaves;
in the house it is like death.
21 “They heard7 my groaning,
yet there is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my trouble;
they are glad that you have done it.
You have brought8 the day you announced;
now let them be as I am.
22 “Let all their evildoing come before you,
and deal with them
as you have dealt with me
because of all my transgressions;
for my groans are many,
and my heart is faint.”
The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity
1 How the Lord in his anger
has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!
He has cast down from heaven to earth
the splendor of Israel;
he has not remembered his sfootstool
in the day of his anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up twithout mercy
all the habitations of Jacob;
in his wrath he has broken down
the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
he has brought down to the ground in dishonor
the kingdom and its rulers.
3 He has cut down in fierce anger
all the might of Israel;
he has uwithdrawn from them his right hand
in the face of the enemy;
he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,
consuming all around.
4 He has vbent his bow like an enemy,
with his right hand set like a foe;
and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes;
in the tent of the daughter of Zion,
he has poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord has become like an enemy;
he has swallowed up Israel;
he has swallowed up all its palaces;
he has laid in ruins its wstrongholds,
and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.
6 He has laid waste his booth like a garden,
laid in ruins his meeting place;
the Lord has made Zion forget
festival and Sabbath,
and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7 The Lord has scorned his altar,
disowned his sanctuary;
he has xdelivered into the hand of the enemy
the walls of her palaces;
they raised a clamor in the house of the Lord
as on the day of festival.
8 The Lord determined to lay in ruins
the wall of the daughter of Zion;
he stretched out the ymeasuring line;
he did not restrain his hand from destroying;
he caused rampart and wall to lament;
they languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
he has ruined and broken her bars;
her king and princes are among the nations;
the law is no more,
and zher prophets find
no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
asit on the ground in silence;
they have bthrown dust on their heads
and put on sackcloth;
the young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes are spent with weeping;
cmy stomach churns;
my bile is poured out to the ground
dbecause of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
because einfants and babies faint
in the streets of the city.
12 They cry to their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like a wounded man
in the streets of the city,
as their life is poured out
on their mothers’ bosom.
13 What can I say for you, to what compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
What can I fliken to you, that I may comfort you,
O gvirgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is vast as the sea;
hwho can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen for you
ifalse and deceptive visions;
they have not jexposed your iniquity
to restore your fortunes,
but have seen for you oracles
that are false and misleading.
15 All who pass along the way
clap their hands at you;
they hiss and kwag their heads
at the daughter of Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that was called
the lperfection of beauty,
mthe joy of all the earth?”
16 All your enemies
rail against you;
they hiss, they gnash their teeth,
they cry: “We have swallowed her!
Ah, this is the day we longed for;
now we have it; we see it!”
17 nThe Lord has done what he purposed;
he has carried out his word,
which he commanded long ago;
he has thrown down without pity;
he has made the enemy orejoice over you
and exalted the might of your foes.
18 Their heart cried to the Lord.
O wall of the daughter of Zion,
let tears stream down like a torrent
day and night!
Give yourself no rest,
your eyes no respite!
19 “Arise, cry out in the night,
at the beginning of the night watches!
pPour out your heart like water
before the presence of the Lord!
Lift your hands to him
for the lives of your children,
who faint for hunger
qat the head of every street.”
20 Look, O Lord, and see!
With whom have you dealt thus?
Should women reat the fruit of their womb,
the children of their tender care?
Should priest and prophet be killed
in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 In the dust of the streets
lie the syoung and the old;
my young women and my young men
have fallen by the sword;
you have killed them in the day of your anger,
slaughtering without pity.
22 You summoned as if to a festival day
my tterrors on every side,
and on the day of the anger of the Lord
no one escaped or survived;
those whom I held and raised
my enemy destroyed.
Christ’s Sacrifice Once for All
1 For since the law has but a lshadow of the mgood things to come instead of the true form of these realities, nit can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been ocleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Consequently, when Christ1 came pinto the world, he said,
q“Sacrifices and offerings ryou have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”
8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and sburnt offerings and tsin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been usanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ vonce for all.
11 And every priest stands wdaily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ2 had xoffered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, yhe sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has zperfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
15 And athe Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
16 b“This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”
17 then he adds,
c“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
