9 Better are those slain with the sword than those slain with hunger;
For these pine away, pierced through from [want of] the fruits of the field. 10 The hands of women [who were once] tender-hearted, have boiled their own children;
They became food to them in the destruction of the daughter of my people. 11 Jahveh accomplished His wrath: He poured out the burning of His anger;
And kindled a fire in Zion, and it devoured her foundations. 12 Would the kinds of the earth, all the inhabitants of the world; not believe
That an adversary and an enemy would enter in at the gates of Jerusalem. 13 Because of the sins of her prophets, the iniquities of her priests,
Who shed blood of righteous ones in her midst, 14 They wander [like] blind men in the streets; they are defiled with blood,
So that [people] could not touch their clothes. 15 "Keep off! it is unclean!" they cried to them, "keep off! keep off! touch not!"
When they fled, they also wandered; [People] say among the nations, "They must no longer sojourn [here]." 16 The face of Jahveh hath scattered them; no longer doth He look on them:
They regard not the priests, they respect not old men. 17 Still do our eyes pine away, [looking] for our help, [which is] vanity:
In our watching, we watched for a nation [that] will not help. 18 They hunt our steps, so that we cannot go in our streets;
Our end is near, our days are full, - yea, our end is come. 19 Our persecutors were swifter than the eagles of heaven;
They pursued us on the mountains, in the wilderness they laid wait for us. 20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Jahveh, was caught in their pits, [Of] whom we thought, "In His shadow we shall live among the nations." 21 Be glad and rejoice, O daughter of Edom, dwelling in the land of Uz
To thee also shall the cup pass; thou shalt be drunk, and make thyself naked. 22 Thy guilt is at an end, O daughter of Zion; He will no more carry thee captive:
He visiteth thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He discovereth thy sins.
Chap. 4
==Verses 1-2== Lamentations 4:1-22
The lamentation over the terrible calamity that has befallen Jerusalem is distinguished in this poem from the lamentations in Lamentations 1 and 2, not merely by the fact that in it the fate
