Also, when I cry out desperately for help, he has shut out my prayer.

י (Yod) Let a person sit alone in silence, when the Lord is disciplining him.

Why should any living person complain when punished for his sins?

י (Yod) The hands of tenderhearted women cooked their own children, who became their food, when my people were destroyed.

ז (Zayin) Jerusalem remembers, when she became a poor homeless person, all her treasures that she owned in days of old. When her people fell into an enemy’s grip, none of her allies came to her rescue. Her enemies gloated over her; they sneered at her downfall.

ל (Lamed) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by on the road? Look and see! Is there any pain like mine? The Lord has afflicted me, he has inflicted it on me when he burned with anger.

א (Alef) Alas! The Lord has covered Daughter Zion with his anger. He has thrown down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he did not protect his temple when he displayed his anger.

ש (Sin/Shin) The young boys and old men lie dead on the ground in the streets. My young women and my young men have fallen by the sword. You killed them when you were angry; you slaughtered them without mercy.

ק (Qof) Get up! Cry out in the night when the night watches start! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord! Lift up your hands to him for your children’s lives; they are fainting at every street corner.

You came near on the day I called to you; you said, “Do not fear!”

Watch them from morning to evening; I am the object of their mocking songs.

ס (Samek) People cry to them, “Turn away! You are unclean! Turn away! Turn away! Don’t touch us!” So they have fled and wander about; but the nations say, “They may not stay here any longer.”

ל (Lamed) Children say to their mothers, “Where are food and drink?” They faint like a wounded warrior in the city squares. They die slowly in their mothers’ arms.

מ (Mem) Whose command was ever fulfilled unless the Lord decreed it?

But this I call to mind; therefore I have hope:

It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young.

ל (Lamed) To crush underfoot all the earth’s prisoners,

to deprive a person of his rights in the presence of the Most High,

to defraud a person in a lawsuit – the Lord does not approve of such things!

ש (Sin/Shin) They have heard that I groan, yet there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have brought it about. Bring about the day of judgment that you promised so that they may end up like me!