eace: they have sprinkled their heads with dust,
they are girdcd with haircloth, the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their
heads to the ground.

2:11. Caph. My eyes have failed with weeping, my bowels are troubled: my
liver is poured out upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter
of my people, when the children, and the sucklings, fainted away in the
streets of the city.

2:12. Lamed. They said to their mothers: Where is corn and wine? when
they fainted away as the wounded in the streets of the city: when they
breathed out their souls in the bosoms of their mothers.

2:13. Mem. To what shall I compare thee? or to what shall I liken thee,
O daughter of Jerusalem? to what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort
thee, O virgin daughter of Sion? for great as the sea is thy
destruction: who shall heal thee?

2:14. Nun. Thy prophets have seen false and foolish things for thee: and
they have not laid open thy iniquity, to excite thee to penance: but
they have seen for thee false revelations and banishments.

2:15. Samech. All they that passed by the way have clapped their hands
at thee: they have hissed, and wagged their heads at the daughter of
Jerusalem, saying: Is this the city of perfect beauty, the joy of all
the earth?

2:16. Phe. All thy enemies have opened their month against thee: they
have hissed, and gnashed with the teeth, and have said: We will swallow
her up: lo, this is the day which we looked for: we have found it, we
have seen it.

2:17. Ain. The Lord hath done that which he purposed, he hath fulfilled
his word, which he commanded in the days of old: he hath destroyed, and
hath not spared, and he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee, and
hath set up the horn of thy adversaries.

2:18. Sade. Their heart cried to the Lord upon the walls of the daughter
of Sion: Let tears run down like a torrent day and night: give thyself
no rest, and let not the apple of thy eye cease.

2:19. Coph. Arise, give praise in the night, in the beginning of the
watches: pour out thy heart like water, before the face of the Lord:
lift up thy hands to him for the life of thy little children, that have
fainted for hunger at the top of all the streets.

2:20. Res. Behold, O Lord, and consider whom thou hast thus dealt with:
shall women then eat their own fruit, their children of a span long?
shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

2:21. Sin. The child and the old man lie without o