The Lord is justified, nay-the-less,
Because I did not his commands obey ;
All nations, therefore, hear my heaviness,
And heed it, for your warning, you I pray!
For into thraldom, through my follies, be
My virgins and my young men borne from me.
Upon my lovers I have cried out,
But they my groundless hopes deceived all.
I for my rev'rend priests enquir'd about ;
I also did upon my elders call;
But in the city, up the ghost they gave,
As they were seeking meat their lives to save.
O Lord! take pity now on my distress,
For lo! my soul distemper'd is in me :
My heart is overcome with heaviness,
Because I have so much offended thee.
Thy sword abroad my ruin doth become, And death doth also threaten me at home. And of my sad complaints my foes have heard; But to afford me comfort there is none. My troubles have at full to them appear'd, Yet they are joyful that thou so hast done. But thou wilt bring the time, set down by thee, And then in sorrow they shall equal me. Then shall those foul offences they have wrought Before thy presence be remember'd all; And whatsoe'er my sins on me have brought, For their transgressions, upon them shall fall, For so my sighings multiplied be,
That therewithal my heart is faint in me.
HOW dark, and how be-clouded, in his wrath,
The Lord hath caused Sion to appear!
How Israel's beauty he obscured hath,;
As if thrown down from heav'n to earth he were
O why is his displeasure grown so hot?
And why hath he his footstool so forgot?
The Lord all Sion's dwellings hath laid waste,
And, in so doing, he no sparing made;
For in his anger to the ground he cast
The strongest holds, that Judah's daughter had:
Them and their kingdom he to ground doth send,
And all the princes of it doth suspend.
When at the highest his displeasure was,
From Israel all his horn of strength he broke;
And from before his adversary's face,
His right hand, that restrained him, he took.
Yea, he in Jacob kindled such a flame,
As round about hath quite consum'd the same.
His bow he as an adversary bent,
And by his right hand he did plainly shew,
He drew it with an enemy's intent;
For all that were the fairest marks he slew.
In Sion's tabernacle this was done;
Ev'n there the fire of his displeasure shone.
The Lord himself is he, that was the foe;
By him is Israel thus to ruin gone;
His palaces he overturned so,
And he his holds of strength hath overthrown:
Ev'n he it is, from whom it doth arise,
That Israel's daughter thus lamenting lies.
His tabernacle, garden-like that was,
The Lord with violence hath took away :
He hath destroyed his assembling place,
And there nor feasts nor sabbaths now have they;
No, not in Sion; for in his fierce wrath,
He both their king and priests rejected hath.
The Lord his holy altar doth forego;
His sanctuary he hath quite despis'd;
Yea, by his mere assistance hath our foe,
The bulwarks of our palaces surpris'd;
And in the Lord's own house rude noises are,
As loud as heretofore his praises were.
The Lord his thought did purposely incline,
The walls of Sion should be overthrown;
To that intent he stretched forth his line,
And drew not back his hand till they were down;
And so the turrets, with the bruised wall,
Did both together to destruction fall.
Her gates in heaps of earth obscured are;
The bars of them in pieces broke hath he;
Her king, and those that once her princes were,
Now borne away among the Gentiles be.
The law is lost, and they no prophet have,
That from the Lord a vision doth receive.
In silence, seated on the lowly ground,
The senators of Sion's daughter are;
With ashes they there careful heads have crown'd,
And mourning sackcloth, girded on them, wear;
Yea, on the earth, in a distressedwise,
Jerusalem's young virgins fire their eyes.
And for because my people suffer this,
Mine eyes with much lamenting dimmed grow:
Each part within me out of quiet is,
And on the ground my liver forth I throw ;
When as mine eyes with so sad objects meet,
As babes half dead and sprawling in the street.
For to their mothers called they for meaf:
Oh! where shall we have meat and drink? they cry;
And in the city, while they food intreat,
They swoon, like them that deadly wounded be;
And some of them their souls did breathe away,
As in their mother's bosom starv'd they lay.
Jerusalem! for thee what can I say?
Or unto what may'st thou resembled be?
O whereunto, that comfort thee I may,
Thou Sion's daughter! shall I liken thee?
For as the seas so great thy breaches are;
And to repair them, ah! who is there?
Thou by thy prophets hast deluded been,
And foolish visions they for thee have sought;
For they revealed not to thee thy sin,
To turn away the thraldom it hath brought;
But lying prophesies they sought for thee,
Which of thy sad exile the causes be.
And those, thou daughter of Jerusalem!
That on occasions pass along this way,
With clapping hands and hissings thee contemn,
And, nodding at thee, thus in scorn they say:
Is this the city men did once behight
The flower of beauty, and the world's delight?
Thy adversaries, every one of them,
Their mouths have open'd at thee, to thy shame :
They hiss and gnash at thee, Jerusalem!
We, we, say they, have quite destroy'd the same.
This is that day hath long expected been;
Now cometh it, and we the same have seen:
But this the Lord decreed, and brought to pass,
He, to make good that word which once he spake,
And that which long ago determin'd was,
Hath hurled down, and did no pity take.
He thus hath made thee scorned of thy foe,
And rais'd the horn of them, that hate thee so.
O, wall of Sion's daughter! cry amain,
Ev'n to the Lord set forth a hearty cry;
Down like a river cause thy tears to rain,
And let them neither day nor night be dry.
Seek neither sleep the body to suffice,
Nor slumber for the apples of thine eyes.
At night, and when the watch is new begun,
Then rise and to the Lord Almighty cry:
Before him let thy heart like water run,
And lift thou up to him thy hands on high;
Ev'n for those hunger-starved babes of thine,
That in the corners of the streets do pine.
And thou, O Lord! oh, be thou pleas'd to see,
And think on whom thy judgments thou hast
thrown;
Shall women fed with their own issue be,
And children that a span are scarcely grown? Shall thus thy priests and prophets, Lord! be slain,
As in the sanctuary they remain ?
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