Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us:
Behold, and see our reproach.
Our inheritance is turned unto strangers,
Our houses unto aliens.
We are orphans and fatherless;
Our mothers are as widows.
We have drunken our water for money;
Our wood is {Hebrew: cometh for price.}sold unto us.
Our pursuers are upon our necks:
We are weary, and have no rest.
We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
Our fathers sinned, and are not;
And we have borne their iniquities.
Servants rule over us:
There is none to deliver us out of their hand.
We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
Our skin is {Or, hot}black like an oven,
Because of the burning heat of famine.
They ravished the women in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.
Princes were hanged up by their hand:
The faces of elders were not honored.
The young men bare the mill;
And the children stumbled under the wood.
The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their music.
The joy of our heart is ceased;
Our dance is turned into mourning.
The crown is fallen from our head:
Woe unto us! for we have sinned.
For this our heart is faint;
For these things our eyes are dim;
For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate:
The {Or, jackels}foxes walk upon it.
Thou, O Jehovah, {Or, sittest as King}abidest for ever;
Thy throne is from generation to generation.
Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
And forsake us so long time?
Turn thou us unto thee, O Jehovah, and we shall be turned;
Renew our days as of old.
{Or, Unless thou…and art &c.}But thou hast utterly rejected us;
Thou art very wroth against us.
Querverweise zu Klagelieder 5,14 Klgl 5,14
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the {Or, appointed feast}solemn assembly;All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh:Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
Therefore is my harp turned to mourning,And my pipe into the voice of them that weep.
I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,While they sought them food to refresh their souls.
The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merry-hearted do sigh.
The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth.
They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.
The waste city is broken down; every house is shut up, that no man may come in.
There is a crying in the streets because of the wine; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is {Hebrew: gone into captivity.}gone.
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence;They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.
Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee, according to thy tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
For thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
When I went forth to the gate unto the city,When I prepared my seat in the {Or, broad place}street,
The young men saw me and hid themselves,And the aged rose up and stood;
The princes refrained from talking,And laid their hand on their mouth;
The voice of the nobels was {Hebrew: hid.}hushed,And their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.
For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me;And when the eye saw me, it gave witness unto me:
Because I delivered the poor that cried,The fatherless also, {Or, and him that had &c.}that had none to help him.
The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me;And I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
I put on righteousness, and it {Or, clothed itself with me}clothed me:My justice was as a robe and a {Or, turban.}diadem.
I was eyes to the blind,And feet was I to the lame.
I was a father to the needy:And {Or, the cause which i knew not}the cause of him that I knew not I searched out.
And I brake the {Hebrew: great teeth.}jaws of the unrighteous,And plucked the prey out of his teeth.
Moreover I will {Hebrew: cause to perish from them.}take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.
And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard.
the mighty man, and the man of war; the judge, and the prophet, and the diviner, and the elder;
And the voice of harpers and minstrels and flute-players and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, {Some ancient authorities omit of whatsoever craft.}of whatsoever craft, shall be found any more at all in thee; and the voice of a mill shall be heard no more at all in thee;
the captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counsellor, and the expert {Or, charmer}artificer, and the skilful enchanter.