4Q111 Lamentations

Language: Hebrew

Date: 30 - 1 B.C.

Location: Qumran Cave 4

Contents: Lamentations 1:1-18; 2:5

 

Lamentations 1

1 How the city sits solitary,

that was full of people!

She has become as a widow,

who was great among the nations!

She who was a princess among the provinces

has become a slave!

 

2 She weeps bitterly in the night.

Her tears are on her cheeks.

Among all her lovers

she has no one to comfort her.

All her friends have dealt treacherously with her.

They have become her enemies.

 

3 Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction,

and because of great servitude.

She dwells among the nations.

She finds no rest.

All her persecutors overtook her within the straits.

 

4 The roads to Zion mourn,

because no one comes to the solemn assembly.

All her gates are desolate.

Her priests sigh.

Her virgins are afflicted,

and she herself is in bitterness.

 

5 Her adversaries have become the head.

Her enemies prosper;

for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions.

Her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary.

 

6 All majesty has departed from the daughter of Zion.

Her princes have become like deer that find no, no pasture.

They have gone without strength before the pursuer.

 

7 Jerusalem Yahweh remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all our pains

all her pleasant things that were from the days of old;

when her people fell into the hand of the adversary,

and no one helped her.

The Her adversaries saw her.

They mocked at all her desolations.

 

8 Jerusalem has grievously sinned.

Therefore she has become unclean.

All who honored her despise her,

because they have seen her nakedness.

Yes, she sighs, and turns backward.

 

9 Her filthiness was in her skirts.

She didn’t remember her latter end.

Therefore she has come down astoundingly.

She has no comforter.

“See, Yahweh, my affliction;

for the enemy has magnified himself.”

 

10 The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things;

for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary,

concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

 

11 All her people sigh.

They seek bread.

They have given their Her[1] pleasant things are for food to refresh their her soul.

“Look, Yahweh, and see;

for I have become despised.”

 

12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?

Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,

which is brought on me,

with which Yahweh has afflicted frightened me in the day of his fierce anger.

 

13 “From on high has he sent fire into my bones,

and it prevails against them.

He has spread a net for my feet.

He has turned me back.

He has made me desolate and I faint all day long.

 

14 “The yoke of It was bound about my transgressions is bound by his hand.

They are His yoke is knit together.

They have come up on my neck.

He made my strength fail.

The Lord Yahweh has delivered me into their hands, the hand of

against whom I am not able to stand.

 

15 “The Lord has set at nothing all my mighty men within me.

He has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men.

The Lord Yahweh has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah as in a wine press.

 

16 “For these things I weep.

My eye, my eye runs down with water,

because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me.

My children are desolate,

because the enemy has prevailed.”[2]

 

17 Zion spreads out her hands.

There is no one to comfort her from all her lovers. You are righteous,

Yahweh; the Lord has commanded kept watch concerning Jacob,

that those who are around him should be his adversaries.

Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

Zion has been banished from among them.

 

16 “For these things I my eyes weep.

My eye, my eye tears runs down with water,

because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me.

My children are desolate,

because the enemy has prevailed.”

 

18 “Yahweh The Lord is righteous;

for I have rebelled against his commandment.

Please hear all you peoples,

and see my sorrow.

My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

[..]

Lamentations 2

5 The Lord has become as an enemy.

He has swallowed up Israel.

He has swallowed up all her palaces.

He has destroyed his strongholds.

He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.