How Lonely Lies the City!
(2 Kings 24:10–17)

1How† lonely sits the city

once full of people!

She has become like a widow,

she who was great among the nations;

the princess of the provinces

has become a slave!

2She weeps bitterly in the night,

and her tears are on her cheeks;

there is not unto her one giving comfort

among all her lovers;

all her companions have dealt treacherously with her,

they have become to her as enemies.

3Judah has gone into exile for affliction

and from an abundance of labor;

she dwells among the nations;

she finds no rest;

all her pursuers have overtaken her

in the midst of distress.

4The paths to Zion are mourning

no one is coming to the appointed feast,

and all her gates are desolate;

her priests are groaning,

her virgins are grieving,

and it is bitter for her.

5Her adversaries have become as the head,

and her enemies prosper;

for YHWH has afflicted her

because of the multitude of her transgressions;

her children have gone into captivity

before the enemy.

6And it has departed from the Daughter of Zion—

all her splendor;

her princes have become like deer

that find no pasture,

and they flee without strength

before the face of the pursuer.

7Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and her wandering

all her desirable things

that were in days before.

In the falling of her people into the hand of the enemy,

there was no one giving help to her;

the adversaries saw her;

they have laughed at her destruction.

8Jerusalem has sinned greatly;

upon thus she has become as filth.

All who honored her despise her,

because they have seen her nakedness;†

even she herself groans and turns away.

9Her uncleanness is on her skirts;

she did not have in mind her end,

and she went down stunningly;

there was no one giving comfort to her.

See, O YHWH, my affliction,

for the enemy has triumphed!

10The adversary has spread his hand

over all her desirable things;

for she has seen the nations

come into her sanctuary,

those whom You commanded not to enter

into the assembly of Yours.

11All her people groan;

they seek bread;

they have given their desirable things for food,

to restore the soul.

See, O YHWH, and consider!

For I have become lightly esteemed.

12Is it nothing to you⁺, all passing by this way?

Look and see

if there is any pain like my pain,

which has been dealt to me,

which YHWH has inflicted

in the day of the burning of His anger.

13From on high He has sent fire into my bones,

and it prevails over them;

He has spread a net for my feet,

and has turned me back;

He has made me desolate,

all the day faint.

14My transgressions are bound into a yoke;†

by His hand they were woven together;

they came up upon my neck;

He has made fail my strength;

the Lord has delivered me into hands;

I am not able to rise up.

15The Lord has rejected all my mighty men

in my midst;

He has summoned an army against me†

to crush my young men as in a winepress;

the Lord has trodden

on the virgin daughter of Judah!

16For these I am weeping;

My eye, my eye is overflowing with water,

because one comforting is far from me,

the restorer of my soul;

my children have become desolate

because the enemy has prevailed.

17Zion spreads out with her hands,

there is no one giving comfort to her;

YHWH has commanded concerning Jacob,

that those around him be his adversaries;

Jerusalem has become

as an unclean thing among them.

18He is righteous—YHWH,

for His mouth I have rebelled against.

Hear now, all peoples,

and see my pain!

My maidens and my young men

have gone into captivity.

19I called out to my lovers,

they deceived me;

my priests and my elders

died off in the city

while they sought food for themselves

and to restore their soul.

20See, O YHWH, that distress is unto me!

My bowels are troubled,

My heart is overturned inside of me,

because I have been most rebellious.

From outside the sword bereaves;

in the house it is as death.

21They have heard that I have sighed;

there is no one giving comfort to me;

all my enemies have heard my trouble;

they are glad that You have done it!

May You bring the day You called for,

and let them become like me.

22Let all their evil come before Your eyes,

and deal with them

as You have dealt with me,

because of all my transgressions;

for many are my groans,

and my heart is faint.