QOPH: I have cried out with my whole heart; hear me, O Jehovah! I will keep Your Statutes.

Jehovah, in trouble they have visited You; they have poured out a prayer when Your chastening was upon them.

As a woman with child draws near to giving birth, she writhes and cries out in her pangs; so have we been in Your sight, O Jehovah.

And they have not cried to Me with their heart, when they wailed on their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and wine; they turn aside from Me.

Jehovah has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from devouring, and He made rampart and wall lament; they languish together.

For the stone shall cry out from the wall, and the beam shall answer it from the timbers.

She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers, she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt deceitfully with her; they have become her enemies.

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.

My eyes flow and do not cease, with no stopping,

Rivers of water run down from my eyes, because they do not keep Your Law.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labor, the anguish as of one bearing her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, gasping and spreading her hands, saying, Woe to me now! For my soul is weary because of murderers.

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!

Thus says Jehovah of Hosts, Consider carefully, and call for those who lament, that they may come. And send for the wise women, that they may come;

and let them make haste and take up a lamentation for us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and waters flow from our eyelids.

But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and my eye shall weep and cry and run down with tears, because Jehovah's flock is taken captive.

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.