The Babylonian Exile

Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.

O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.

O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.

Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.

Thou hast heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me;

The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.

Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.

Render unto them a recompence, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.

Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.

Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.

¶ How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.

The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.

They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:

Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.

The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.

The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

¶ For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,

They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.