Lamentations 1:8

²⁰“Look, LORD; for I am in distress. My heart is troubled. My heart turns over within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad, the sword bereaves. At home, it is like death. ²¹“They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me. ²²“Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

²But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. ³For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue mutters wickedness. ⁴No one sues in righteousness, and no one pleads in truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies. They conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. ⁵They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web. He who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper. ⁶Their webs won’t become garments. They won’t cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and acts of violence are in their hands. ⁷Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are in their paths. ⁸They don’t know the way of peace; and there is no justice in their ways. They have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever goes in them doesn’t know peace. ⁹Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity. ¹⁰We grope for the wall like the blind. Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Among those who are strong, we are like dead men. ¹¹We all roar like bears and moan sadly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far off from us. ¹²For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them: ¹³transgressing and denying the LORD, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

⁴The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness. ⁵Her adversaries have become the head. Her enemies prosper; for the LORD ^[+] has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary.

²²If you say in your heart, “Why have these things come on me?” Your skirts are uncovered because of the greatness of your iniquity, and your heels suffer violence.

¹¹All her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, LORD, and see, for I have become despised.”

²⁶Therefore I will also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame will appear.

¹⁵“Go away!” they cried to them. “Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, “They can’t live here any more.” ¹⁶The LORD’s anger has scattered them. He will not pay attention to them any more. They didn’t respect the persons of the priests. They didn’t favor the elders.

²¹Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, who dwells in the land of Uz. The cup will pass through to you also. You will be drunken, and will make yourself naked.

⁹I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them.

¹²Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honored. ¹³The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood. ¹⁴The elders have ceased from the gate, and the young men from their music. ¹⁵The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning. ¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!