1. How the gold has become dim; the fine gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.
2. The precious sons of Zion are weighed against pure gold; how they are counted as earthen vessels, the work of a potter's hand!
3. Even the jackals draw out the breast; they suckle their young ones. The daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
4. The suckling's tongue cleaves to his palate in thirst; the young children ask bread; there is no breaking to them.
5. Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those reared in scarlet embrace dunghills.
6. And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is heaped more than the sin of Sodom, overthrown as in a moment, and no hands spun on her.
7. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were redder of bone than corals; their cuttings as lapis lazuli, azure blue.
8. Their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it is dried up; it has become like wood.
9. Better are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger; those who pine away, pierced because the fruits of my fields failed.
10. The hands of the pitying women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the ruin of the daughter of my people.
11. Jehovah has fulfilled His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger, and has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured its foundations.
12. The kings of the earth, and all the people of the world, would not have believed that the foe and the hater would go into Jerusalem's gates.
13. For the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, shedding the blood of the just in her midst,
14. they reeled blind in the streets; they are defiled with blood, so that not any can touch their clothes.
15. They cried to them, Depart! Unclean! Depart, depart! Touch not! Indeed they fled and reeled; they said among the nations, They will not continue to live there.
16. The face of Jehovah has shared them out; He will no longer look on them; they did not respect the persons of the priests; they did not favor the elders.
17. While we are, our eyes fail, for our help is vain; in our watching we have watched for a nation; it does not save.
18. They hunted our steps from going in our streets; our end was near, our days were fulfilled, for our end has come.
19. Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; they pursued us on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
20. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, In His shadow we shall live among the nations.
21. Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, who lives in the land of Uz. The cup also shall pass through unto you; you shall be drunken and stripped naked.
22. The punishment of your iniquity is fulfilled, O daughter of Zion; He will exile you no more. He will visit your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.