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4 Alas! How bedimmed is the gold,
The most pure gold.
The jewels, so sacred, lie scattered
At every street corner.
2 The children of Zion, the precious,
Whose worth is as gold,
Count, alas! but as earthenware pitchers,
The work of the potter.
3 Even the monsters give breast
And they suckle their young;
But the daughters of my people are cruel
As ostriches wild.
4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaves
To his palate for thirst.
The children are craving for bread;
There is none to dispose it.
5 Those that had feasted on dainties
Now waste on the streets.
Those that were nurtured in scarlet
Lie huddled on ash-heaps.
6 The guilt of my people surpassed
The transgressions of Sodom,
Whose overthrow came in a flash
Ere a hand could be wrung.
7 Her princes were purer than snow,
They were whiter than milk,
With a skin more ruddy than coral
And veins like the sapphire.
8 Now blacker than darkness their form–
On the streets no one knows them:
Their skin is drawn tight on their bones;
It is dry as a stick.
9 Better they that are slain with the sword
Than that perish with hunger,
Pinning away for the lack
Of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of compassionate women
Have sodden their children.
Yea, these have served them for food
In the wreck of my people.
11 The Lord hath accomplised His wrath,
Hath poured out His hot anger,
And kindled in Zion a fire
Which devoured her foundations.
12 No kings of the earth had believed,
And no folk in the world,
That assailant or foeman could enter
The gates of Jerusalem.
13 It was all for the sins of her prophets,
The crimes of her priests,
Who have shed in the midst of the city
The blood of the righteous.
14 With the blood-stains upon them they reel
Like the blind through the streets,
And they touch with their robes those whom erstwhile
They could not endure.
15 "Away, ye unclean!" – men adjure them–
"Away, touch us not!"
So they stagger and wander around
With no resting for ever.
16 Jehovah Himself hath dispersed them–
He careth no more.
For the priest Ha hath shown no regard,
For the prophets no pity.
17 How long did our weary eyes watch
For the help that was vain!
Yea, on our watch-tower we watched
For the nation that saved not.
18 They hunted our steps, that we dared not
Appear in out streets.
Our days were cut short and completed;
Our end was now come.
19 Swifter were they that pursued us
Than eagles of heaven.
Over the mountains they chased us;
They ambushed the desert.
20 The breath of our life, God’s anointed,
Was trapped in their toils–
He of whom we had said, "’Neath his shade
We shall live as a nation."
21 Be glad and rejoice in thy home-land,
O daughter of Edom.
To thee, too, the cup shall come round;
Thou’lt be drunken and naked.
22 O Zion, thy guilt is now blotted:
Of exile no more!
But thy guilt He shall visit, O Edom;
Thy sins are laid bare.
Jerusalem’s Sorrow and Prayer for Deliverance
Her Sorrows