Atlas Biblica

    Lamentations · 22 verses

    Lamentations 4

    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.

    Zion’s dignitaries descend from jewel-like splendour to soot, shrivelled skin, and sticks—the chapter’s most pitiless change of costume.

    From gold to hungervv. 1–10

    The temple’s gems are scattered, Zion’s precious sons are treated like pottery, and even jackals appear more attentive to their young than the daughter of this people. Infants thirst, children beg, the well-fed huddle in ash, and the once-radiant dignitaries become unrecognisable. Hunger becomes so dreadful that compassionate women cook their own children: a sentence in which compassion and horror are forced into the same cramped room.

    The gates give wayvv. 11–20

    The LORD’s anger is pictured as a fire consuming Zion’s foundations, while kings and peoples who thought Jerusalem impregnable discover that it can indeed be entered. The blame falls on prophets and priests, whose guilt is described in blood; they wander the streets and are shouted away as unclean. Meanwhile, watchmen look for help that never arrives, pursuers close in over mountains and wilderness, and the LORD’s anointed—once called the breath of life—is captured in pits.

    The cup reaches Edomvv. 21–22

    Edom is invited to rejoice with the sort of cheer that has a trapdoor beneath it: the cup will reach there too, and gladness will end in exposure. Zion’s punishment, by contrast, is said to be complete; the final word turns towards Edom, where iniquity and sins are still to be exposed.

    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 4:1How the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner.

    2. Lam 4:2How 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!

    3. Lam 4:3Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.

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

    5. Lam 4:5Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps.

    6. Lam 4:6The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand turned to help her.

    7. Lam 4:7Her dignitaries were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like sapphires.

    8. Lam 4:8But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.

    9. Lam 4:9Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.

    10. Lam 4:10The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

    11. Lam 4:11The LORD has exhausted His wrath; He has poured out His fierce anger; He has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has consumed her foundations.

    12. Lam 4:12The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any people of the world, that an enemy or a foe could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

    13. Lam 4:13But this was for the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.

    14. Lam 4:14They wandered blind in the streets, defiled by this blood, so that no one dared to touch their garments.

    15. Lam 4:15“Go away! Unclean!” men shouted at them. “Away, away! Do not touch us!” So they fled and wandered. Among the nations it was said, “They can stay here no longer.”

    16. Lam 4:16The presence of the LORD has scattered them; He regards them no more. The priests are shown no honor; the elders find no favor.

    17. Lam 4:17All the while our eyes were failing as we looked in vain for help. We watched from our towers for a nation that could not save us.

    18. Lam 4:18They stalked our every step, so that we could not walk in our streets. Our end drew near, our time ran out, for our end had come!

    19. Lam 4:19Those who chased us were swifter than the eagles in the sky; they pursued us over the mountains and ambushed us in the wilderness.

    20. Lam 4:20The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”

    21. Lam 4:21So rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz. Yet the cup will pass to you as well; you will get drunk and expose yourself.

    22. Lam 4:22O Daughter of Zion, your punishment is complete; He will not prolong your exile. But He will punish your iniquity, O Daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.

    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. 254 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.

    • 2Isaiah 30:14It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”
    • 2Jeremiah 19:11and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.
    • 2Romans 9:21–23Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?
    • 4Psalms 22:15My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death.
    • 6Genesis 19:25Thus He destroyed these cities and the entire plain, including all the inhabitants of the cities and everything that grew on the ground.
    • 7Psalms 51:7Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
    • 18Amos 8:2“Amos, what do you see?” He asked. “A basket of summer fruit,” I replied. So the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel; I will no longer spare them.”
    • 19Habakkuk 1:8Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead, and their cavalry comes from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to devour.
    • 19Jeremiah 4:13Behold, he advances like the clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined!
    • 22Isaiah 40:2“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.”
    • 1Ezekiel 7:19–22They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem unclean. Their silver and gold cannot save them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their appetites or fill their stomachs with wealth, for it became the stumbling block that brought their iniquity.
    • 22 Timothy 2:20A large house contains not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Some indeed are for honorable use, but others are for common use.
    • 3Luke 23:28–29But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
    • 3Ezekiel 5:10As a result, fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.’
    • 8Lamentations 5:10Our skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger.
    • 102 Kings 6:26–29As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

    Onward

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