Lamentations 1:12-22

12‘Come and really look at me! All you people who pass me do not show any interest in me. But you have never seen anything as sad as I am. The Lord was very angry with me. So it was the Lord who did this to me.

13It is like God has sent fire down into our bones to hurt us. He wants us to turn towards him again, so he has caused things to be very difficult for us. All day he causes us to feel lonely and weak.

14He has caused our sins to seem like something very heavy that lies on our necks. It makes us weak. He has let the enemy be very strong. He let them win against us. So we cannot beat them.

15The Lord has let the enemy beat all our strong men. He brought a big army to fight our young men, and the enemy won that fight. The Lord God has punished us, like people walk on grapes to break them. He has let the enemy destroy the people of Judah.

16We weep because of these things. Tears run down our faces because God is not with us. Nobody will help us. We are the children of this city and we have nothing now. The enemy has won.’

17Zion's people ask for help, but nobody is their friend. They are Jacob's children. But the Lord has said that he will cause their enemies to come from every country near them. Those other people think about Jerusalem as they would think about something dirty.

18‘The Lord is right to punish us. We have not obeyed him. Listen, all people everywhere, and look at us. We are in very bad trouble. The enemy has taken away our young women and our young men to be slaves.’

19‘We shouted to our friends. They had said that they would help us. But they did not help us. Our priests and our leaders died in the city. They were looking for food to keep themselves alive.

20Look, Lord, we are in a lot of trouble. We are very sad. We are weak deep inside ourselves because we have done so many bad things. They are killing our people in the streets. People are dying in the houses.’

21‘Everybody knows that we are very sad. Nobody wants to help us. All our enemies know about our trouble. They are happy, God, that you caused that trouble. Please cause trouble for those enemies too, as you promised.

22You know that they have done many bad things. Punish them as you have punished us. You punished us because we did many bad things. Now we are ashamed and we are very sad.’