Lamentations 1:6-8

The Voice

⁶ Faded beauty, this daughter Zion.
    Her princely young men, like stags,
They have no place to graze, no strength to fight;
    they fled to the woods,
Pursued mercilessly by hunters.

⁷ Gone are the days that she remembers, happy and precious;
    Jerusalem wanders aimlessly and remembers what precious things she has lost—
Things from the old days of David, Solomon, and Josiah.
    But now her people have fallen to her enemies,
And in this defeat by her enemies, no one ran to her aid,
    and her enemies now snicker and gloat at her downfall.

⁸ Hideous must be Jerusalem’s crimes
    that the city itself is now morally and ritually impure.
Those who once admired her now hate her.
    They strip her naked and laugh.
All she can do is groan
    and shrink back, ashamed.