Atlas Biblica

    Lamentations · 22 verses

    Lamentations 1

    Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.

    The chapter

    What happens here

    Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.

    The city is made to wear nearly every grief at once: widow, slave, abandoned lover—and at the end asks that its enemies become like it.

    A city with nobody comingvv. 1–11

    Jerusalem begins as a widow and a slave, weeping at night while the friends and lovers who might have comforted her have turned against her. Even the roads to Zion have joined the mourning, since no one comes to the feasts; the gates are deserted, the priests groan, the maidens grieve, and the city herself is bitter. It is an unusually crowded loneliness. Judah is away among the nations, the people barter their treasures for bread, and the enemies have the indecency to laugh at the downfall.

    The lament turns outwardvv. 12–22

    At verse twelve, the city stops being described and speaks for herself, calling on the LORD to look at the sorrow. Fire, a net, a yoke, a broken strength, and a winepress follow in quick succession; the distress is given a whole cupboard of metaphors. Yet the strangest turn comes at the end. After saying that nobody comforts her, Jerusalem asks that the enemies become like her. The abandoned lover does not ask for a new consolation, but for a matching misery.

    The text

    Read it

    Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

    1. Lam 1:1How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave.

    2. Lam 1:2She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

    3. Lam 1:3Judah has gone into exile under affliction and harsh slavery; she dwells among the nations but finds no place to rest. All her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

    4. Lam 1:4The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish.

    5. Lam 1:5Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. For the LORD has brought her grief because of her many transgressions. Her children have gone away as captives before the enemy.

    6. Lam 1:6All the splendor has departed from the Daughter of Zion. Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; they lack the strength to flee in the face of the hunter.

    7. Lam 1:7In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands she received no help. Her enemies looked upon her, laughing at her downfall.

    8. Lam 1:8Jerusalem has sinned greatly; therefore she has become an object of scorn. All who honored her now despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away.

    9. Lam 1:9Her uncleanness stains her skirts; she did not consider her end. Her downfall was astounding; there was no one to comfort her. Look, O LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!

    10. Lam 1:10The adversary has seized all her treasures. For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary—those You had forbidden to enter Your assembly.

    11. Lam 1:11All her people groan as they search for bread. They have traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. Look, O LORD, and consider, for I have become despised.

    12. Lam 1:12Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?

    13. Lam 1:13He sent fire from on high, and it overpowered my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.

    14. Lam 1:14My transgressions are bound into a yoke, knit together by His hand; they are draped over my neck, and the Lord has broken my strength. He has delivered me into the hands of those I cannot withstand.

    15. Lam 1:15The Lord has rejected all the mighty men in my midst; He has summoned an army against me to crush my young warriors. Like grapes in a winepress, the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah.

    16. Lam 1:16For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears. For there is no one nearby to comfort me, no one to revive my soul. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed.

    17. Lam 1:17Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

    18. Lam 1:18The LORD is righteous, yet I rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity.

    19. Lam 1:19I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.

    20. Lam 1:20See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.

    21. Lam 1:21People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have caused it. May You bring the day You have announced, so that they may become like me.

    22. Lam 1:22Let all their wickedness come before You, and deal with them as You have dealt with me because of all my transgressions. For my groans are many, and my heart is faint.

    01 — Also here

    Who else the chapter reaches

    Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

    Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

    02 — Read alongside

    Where this is echoed

    Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 505 passages were voted onto 22 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

    • 9Deuteronomy 32:29If only they were wise, they would understand it; they would comprehend their fate.
    • 9Isaiah 47:7You said, ‘I will be queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or consider their outcome.
    • 10Deuteronomy 23:3No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even to the tenth generation.
    • 1Isaiah 3:26And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.
    • 9Psalms 25:18Consider my affliction and trouble, and take away all my sins.
    • 11Jeremiah 52:6By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.
    • 17Jeremiah 4:31For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”
    • 18Psalms 119:75I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.
    • 1Ezra 4:20And mighty kings have ruled over Jerusalem and exercised authority over the whole region west of the Euphrates; and tribute, duty, and toll were paid to them.
    • 1Revelation 18:16–17saying: “Woe, woe to the great city, clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls!
    • 11 Kings 4:21And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These kingdoms offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.
    • 2Psalms 6:6I am weary from groaning; all night I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.
    • 8Lamentations 1:20–22See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.
    • 8Isaiah 59:2–13But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.
    • 10Jeremiah 51:51“We are ashamed because we have heard reproach; disgrace has covered our faces, because foreigners have entered the holy places of the LORD’s house.”
    • 11Lamentations 2:12They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers.

    Onward

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