“All your wives and your children will be turned over to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape from them but will be captured by the king of Babylon. This city will be burned down.”

They will ask the way to Zion; they will turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the Lord in a lasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

א (Alef)Alas! The city once full of people now sits all alone! The prominent lady among the nations has become a widow! The princess who once ruled the provinces has become a forced laborer!

ה (He) Her foes subjugated her; her enemies are at ease. For the Lord afflicted her because of her many acts of rebellion. Her children went away captive before the enemy.

ט (Tet) Her menstrual flow has soiled her clothing; she did not consider the consequences of her sin. Her demise was astonishing, and there was no one to comfort her. She cried, “Look, O Lord, on my affliction because my enemy boasts!”

ס (Samek) He rounded up all my mighty ones; The Lord did this in my midst. He summoned an assembly against me to shatter my young men. The Lord has stomped like grapes the virgin daughter, Judah.

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.

ב (Bet) The Lord destroyed mercilessly all the homes of Jacob’s descendants. In his anger he tore down the fortified cities of Daughter Judah. He knocked to the ground and humiliated the kingdom and its rulers.

ד (Dalet) He prepared his bow like an enemy; his right hand was ready to shoot. Like a foe he killed everyone, even our strong young men; he has poured out his anger like fire on the tent of Daughter Zion.

ה (He) The Lord, like an enemy, destroyed Israel. He destroyed all her palaces; he ruined her fortified cities. He made everyone in Daughter Judah mourn and lament.

ח (Khet) The Lord was determined to tear down Daughter Zion’s wall. He prepared to knock it down; he did not withdraw his hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and fortified walls lament; together they mourned their ruin.

ע (Ayin) The Lord has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his promise that he threatened long ago: He has overthrown you without mercy and has enabled the enemy to gloat over you; he has exalted your adversaries’ power.

ר (Resh) Look, O Lord! Consider! Whom have you ever afflicted like this? Should women eat their offspring, their healthy infants? Should priest and prophet be killed in the Lord’s sanctuary?

ת (Tav) O people of Zion, your punishment will come to an end; he will not prolong your exile. But, O people of Edom, he will punish your sin and reveal your offenses!

Then a wind lifted me up and carried me to the exiles in Babylonia, in the vision given to me by the Spirit of God. Then the vision I had seen went up from me.

They will console you when you see their behavior and their deeds, because you will know that it was not without reason that I have done everything which I have done in it, declares the sovereign Lord.”

Say to them: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: “‘A great eagle with broad wings, long feathers, with full plumage which was multi-hued, came to Lebanon and took the top of the cedar.

For the king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road at the head of the two routes. He looks for omens: He shakes arrows, he consults idols, he examines animal livers.

“‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to the city of bloodshed, the pot whose rot is in it, whose rot has not been removed from it! Empty it piece by piece. No lot has fallen on it.

It was like the vision I saw when he came to destroy the city, and the vision I saw by the Kebar River. I threw myself face down.