Scriptures

New Living Translation (NLT)

Lamentations 4
⁷ Our princes once glowed with health— brighter than snow, whiter than milk. Their faces were as ruddy as rubies, their appearance like fine jewels.
⁸ But now their faces are blacker than soot. No one recognizes them in the streets. Their skin sticks to their bones; it is as dry and hard as wood.
⁹ Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger. Starving, they waste away for lack of food from the fields.
¹⁰ Tenderhearted women have cooked their own children. They have eaten them to survive the siege.
¹¹ But now the anger of the LORD is satisfied. His fierce anger has been poured out. He started a fire in Jerusalem that burned the city to its foundations.
¹² Not a king in all the earth— no one in all the world— would have believed that an enemy could march through the gates of Jerusalem.
¹³ Yet it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the sins of her priests, who defiled the city by shedding innocent blood.
¹⁴ They wandered blindly through the streets, so defiled by blood that no one dared touch them.
¹⁵ “Get away!” the people shouted at them. “You’re defiled! Don’t touch us!” So they fled to distant lands and wandered among foreign nations, but none would let them stay.
¹⁶ The LORD himself has scattered them, and he no longer helps them. People show no respect for the priests and no longer honor the leaders.
¹⁷ We looked in vain for our allies to come and save us, but we were looking to nations that could not help us.