Berean Standard Bible

Lamentations 4:1-6

1How1 the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner.

2How the precious sons of Zion,once worth their weight in pure gold,are now esteemed as jars of clay,the work of a potter’s hands!

3Even jackals2 offer their breaststo nurse their young,but the daughter of my people has become cruel,like an ostrich in the wilderness.

4The nursing infant’s tongueclings in thirst to the roof of his mouth.Little children beg for bread,but no one gives them any.

5Those who once ate delicaciesare destitute in the streets;those brought up in crimsonhuddle in ash heaps.

6The punishment3 of the daughter of my peopleis greater than that of Sodom,which was overthrown in an instantwithout a hand turned to help her.

Notes

1. Lamentations 4:1 This chapter is an acrostic poem, each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. ↩
2. Lamentations 4:3 Or serpents or dragons ↩
3. Lamentations 4:6 Or iniquity ↩