For these I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who could refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy has prevailed.

Streams of water run down my eyes for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

until Jehovah looks down from Heaven and has regard.

Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more strength to weep.

My eye has wasted away because of grief; it has grown weak because of all my enemies.

Have mercy upon me, O Jehovah, for I am in trouble; my eye has wasted away with grief; even my soul and my belly.

I am weary from my crying; my throat is dried; my eyes fail while I wait for my God.

Like a twittering swallow, so I chatter; I mourn as a dove; my eyes look weakly to the heights. O Jehovah, I am distressed; be surety for me.

Behold, O Jehovah, for I am in distress; my stomach is upset; my heart churns within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Outside the sword bereaves; at home it is like death.

My stomach, my stomach! I am convulsed to my heart! My heart groans within me; I cannot be silent because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the shofar, the alarm of war.

His archers surround me; He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground.

I am poured out like water, and all My bones are separated; My heart is like wax, it has melted within Me.

The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Therefore I said, Look away from me; I will weep bitterly; do not insist on comforting me because of the devastation of the daughter of my people.

Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land. Is not Jehovah in Zion? Is not her King in her? Why have they provoked Me to anger with their graven images, with foreign vanities?

For the ruin of the daughter of my people I am broken; I am in gloom; horror has seized me.

Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Therefore you shall speak this word to them: Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and do not let them cease. For the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great break, with a sickening blow.

Arise, cry out in the night. At the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward Him for the life of your children who faint from hunger at the head of every street.

Behold, O Jehovah, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their offspring, children of their tender care? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Even the monsters draw out the breast to suckle their young. But the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

The tongue of the infant cleaves to the roof of his mouth in thirst; the young children ask for bread; there is none broken to them.

Better off are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger; for they pine away, pierced through for lack of the fruits of the fields.

The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

For behold the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed.