American Standard Version of 1901
Versliste
How is the gold become dim! how is the most pure gold changed!The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.
The precious sons of Zion, {Hebrew: that may be weighted against.}comparable to fine gold,How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
Even the jackals draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones:The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst:The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets:They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
For the {Or, the punishment of the inquity}iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than {Or, the punishment of sin}the sin of Sodom,That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands {Or, fell See 2 Samuel 2:29. }were laid upon her.
Her {Or, Nazirites}nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk;They were more ruddy in body than {Or, corals}rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire.
Their visage is {Hebrew: darker than blackness.}blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets:Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger;For these {Hebrew: flow away.}pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children;They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger!He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;He hath brought them down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.
He hath cut off in fierce anger {Or, every horn}all the horn of Israel;He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy:And he hath burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary,And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: {Or, On}In the tent of the daughter of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire.
The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel;He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds;And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
And he hath violently taken away his {Or, booth Or, hedge}tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly:Jehovah hath caused {Or, appointed feast}solemn assembly and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion,And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary;He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces:They have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion;He hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from {Hebrew: swallowing up.}destroying;And he hath made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not;Yea, her prophets find no vision from Jehovah.
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.
Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled;My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the {Or, breach}destruction of the daughter of my people,Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine?When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city,When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
What shall I {Or, take to witness for thee}testify unto thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?What shall I compare to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
Thy prophets have seen for thee false and foolish visions;And they have not uncovered thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity,But have seen for thee false {Hebrew: burdens.}oracles and {Or, things to draw thee aside}causes of banishment.
All that pass by clap their hands at thee;They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee;They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up;Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
Jehovah hath done that which he purposed; he hath {Or, finished}fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old;He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied:And he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath exalted the horn of thine adversaries.
Their heart cried unto the Lord:O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night;Give thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches;Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord:Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus!Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands?Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets;My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword:Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied.
Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side;And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger:Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations!She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks;Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies.
Judah is gone into {Or, exile}captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude;She dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest:All her persecutors overtook her within the straits.
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.
Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper;For Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.
And from the daughter of Zion all her {Or, beauty}majesty is departed:Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
Jerusalem remembereth in the days of her affliction and of her {Or, wanderings}miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old:When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her,The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her {Hebrew: ceasings.}desolations.
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she {Or, is removed}is become as an unclean thing;All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness:Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
Her filthiness was in her skirts; she remembered not her latter end;Therefore is she come down wonderfully; she hath no comforter:Behold, O Jehovah, my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself.
The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things:For she hath seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary,Concerning whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thine assembly.
All her people sigh, they seek bread;They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul:See, O Jehovah, and behold; for I am become abject.
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is brought upon me, {Or, Whom Jehovah hath afflicted}Wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
From on high hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them;He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand;They are knit together, they are come up upon my neck; he hath made my strength to {Hebrew: stumble.}fail:The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, {Or, from whom I am not able to rise up}against whom I am not able to stand.
The Lord hath set at nought all my mighty men in the midst of me;He hath called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men:The Lord hath trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.
For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water;Because the comforter that should refresh my soul is far from me:My children are desolate, because the enemy hath prevailed.
Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort her;Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, that they that are round about him should be his adversaries:Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.
Jehovah is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment:Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow:My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
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.
Behold, O Jehovah; for I am in distress; my heart is troubled;My heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me;All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it:Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast proclaimed, and they shall be like unto me.
Let all their wickedness come before thee;And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger!He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;He hath brought them down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.
He hath cut off in fierce anger {Or, every horn}all the horn of Israel;He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy:And he hath burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary,And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: {Or, On}In the tent of the daughter of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire.
The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel;He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds;And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
And he hath violently taken away his {Or, booth Or, hedge}tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly:Jehovah hath caused {Or, appointed feast}solemn assembly and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion,And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary;He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces:They have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion;He hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from {Hebrew: swallowing up.}destroying;And he hath made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not;Yea, her prophets find no vision from Jehovah.
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.
Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled;My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the {Or, breach}destruction of the daughter of my people,Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine?When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city,When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
What shall I {Or, take to witness for thee}testify unto thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?What shall I compare to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
Thy prophets have seen for thee false and foolish visions;And they have not uncovered thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity,But have seen for thee false {Hebrew: burdens.}oracles and {Or, things to draw thee aside}causes of banishment.
All that pass by clap their hands at thee;They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee;They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up;Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
Jehovah hath done that which he purposed; he hath {Or, finished}fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old;He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied:And he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath exalted the horn of thine adversaries.
Their heart cried unto the Lord:O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night;Give thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches;Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord:Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus!Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands?Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets;My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword:Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied.
Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side;And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger:Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations!She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger!He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be mine own possession {Or, above}from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine:
and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
The wings of the ostrich wave proudly;But are they the pinions and plumage of {Or, a stork}love?
For she leaveth her eggs on the earth,And warmeth them in the dust,
And forgetteth that the foot may crush them,Or that the wild beast may trample them.
She {Or, is hardened against}dealeth hardly with her young ones, as if they were not hers:Though her labor be in vain, she is without fear;
Because God hath {Hebrew: made her to forget wisdom.}deprived her of wisdom,Neither hath he imparted to her understanding.
What time she {Or, rouseth herself up to flight}lifteth up herself on high,She scorneth the horse and his rider.
And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself therewith; and he sat among the ashes.
Hear the word of Jehovah, ye {Or, judges}rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the {Or, teaching}law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they strengthen the hands of evil-doers, so that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
And thine elder sister is Samaria, that dwelleth at thy left hand, she and her daughters; and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.
Yet hast thou not walked in their ways, nor done after their abominations; but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast more corrupt than they in all thy ways.
As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.
You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.
And that {Greek: bondservant.}servant, who knew his lord's will, and made not ready, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes;
but he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom they commit much, of him will they ask the more.
and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon its feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces.
Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
The blessings of thy fatherHave prevailed above the blessings of my progenitorsUnto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills:They shall be on the head of Joseph,And on the crown of the head of him {Or, that is prince among}that was separate from his brethren.
And for the precious things of the earth and the fulness thereof,And the good will of him that dwelt in the bush.Let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph,And upon the crown of the head of him {Or, that is prince among}that was separate from his brethren.
My beloved is white and ruddy, {Hebrew: Marked out by a banner.}The chiefest among ten thousand.
I am black, but comely,Oh ye daughters of Jerusalem,As the tents of Kedar,As the curtains of Solomon.
Look not upon me, because I am swarthy,Because the sun hath {Or, looked upon}scorched me.My mother's sons were incensed against me;They made me keeper of the vineyards;But mine own vineyard have I not kept.
My skin is black, and falleth from me,And my bones are burned with heat.
See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus!Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands?Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore {Or, shekels}pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five {Or, shekels}pieces of silver.
And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king.
And he said, {Or, Nay, let Jehovah help thee!}If Jehovah do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the threshing-floor, or out of the winepress?
And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow.
So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him; and she hath hid her son.
Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, these may forget, yet will not I forget thee.
And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their life, shall distress them.
For mine eyes are upon all their ways; they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity concealed from mine eyes.
Sigh, {Hebrew: be silent.}but not aloud, make no mourning for the dead; bind thy headtire upon thee, and put thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men.
They shall not pour out wine-offerings to Jehovah, {Or, neither shall their sacrifices be pleasing unto him: their bread shall be unto them &c.}neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted; for their bread shall be for their appetite; it shall not come into the house of Jehovah.