Lamentations 4

¹How the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner.

²How the precious sons of Zion, once worth their weight in pure gold, are now esteemed as jars of clay, the work of a potter’s hands!

³Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.

⁴The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.

⁵Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps.

⁶The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand turned to help her.

⁷Her dignitaries were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like sapphires.

⁸But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.

⁹Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.

¹⁰The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹¹The LORD has exhausted His wrath; He has poured out His fierce anger; He has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has consumed her foundations.