transgressions. She sees her infant young led into captivity by the enemy.
6 Fair Zion is deprived of all her glory. Her princely leaders now roam about like deer: in desperate search of pasture, powerless as they flee before the predator.
7 Gone is all she cherished in former times. Now suffering pain and degradation, Jerusalem has no one to support her. Her people have fallen into the hands of an enemy who derides her undoing.
8 How grievous must be Jerusalem’ s sin! She is an outcast. Those who once esteemed her now hold her in contempt, for they have seen her debased and dishonored. She herself gasps and recoils.
9 Impurity sullies her! She can give no thought to the future. She has fallen so terribly low; she is disconsolate. See, Lord, how the enemy has compounded my anguish!
10 Jerusalem’ s enemies have laid hands upon her and all she holds dear. She has beheld foreigners – debarred by Your Command from even entering Your covenantal community – invading her very Sanctuary.
11 Keeping themselves alive by trading prized possessions for food, her groaning populace searches for bread. Look, Lord! See my wretchedness!
12 Look about, all you passersby, and see. Is there any pain like that which I have suffered? That which I have borne? That which the Lord, in His righteous wrath, has inflicted upon me? May you never know the like!
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