5Q6 Lamentations^a

Language: Hebrew

Date: About 50 A.D.

Location: Qumran Cave 5

Contents: Lamentations 4:5-8, 11-16, 19-22; 5:1-13, 16-17

 

Lamentations 4

5 Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets.

Those who were brought up in purple embrace dunghills.

 

6 For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom,

which was overthrown as in a moment.

No hands were laid on her.

 

7 Her nobles were purer than snow.

They were whiter than milk.

They were more ruddy in body than rubies.

Their polishing was like sapphire.

 

8 Their appearance is blacker than a coal.

They are not known in the streets.

Their skin clings to their bones.

It is withered.

It has become like a stick.

[..]

11 Yahweh has accomplished his wrath.

He has poured out his fierce anger.

He has kindled a fire in Zion,

which has devoured its foundations.

 

12 The kings of the earth didn’t believe,

neither did all the inhabitants of the world,

that the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.

 

13 It is because of the sins of her prophets

and the iniquities of her priests,

That have shed the blood of the just in the middle of her.

 

14 They wander as blind men in the streets.

They are polluted with blood,

So that men can’t touch their garments.

 

15 “Go away!” they cried to them.

“Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch!

When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations,

“They can’t live here any more.”

 

16 Yahweh’s anger has scattered them.

He will not pay attention to them any more.

They didn’t respect the persons of the priests.

They didn’t favor the elders.

 

[..]

19 Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky.

They chased us on the mountains.

They set an ambush for us in the wilderness.

 

20 The breath of our nostrils,

the anointed of Yahweh,

was taken in their pits;

of whom we said,

under his shadow we will live among the nations.

 

21 Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom,

that dwells in the land of Uz.

The cup will pass through to you also.

You will be drunken,

and will make yourself naked.

 

22 The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion.

He will no more carry you away into captivity.

He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom.

He will uncover your sins.

 

Lamentations 5

1 Remember, Yahweh, what has come on us.

Look, and see our reproach.

2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,

our houses to aliens.

3 We are orphans and fatherless.

Our mothers are as childless and widows.

4 We have drunken our water for money.

Our wood is sold to us.

5 Our pursuers are on our necks.

We are weary, and have no rest.

6 We have given our hands to the Egyptians,

and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers sinned, and are no more.

We have borne their iniquities.

8 Servants rule over us.

There is no one to deliver us out of their hand.

9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives,

because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin is black like an oven,

because of the burning heat of famine.

11 They ravished the women in Zion,

the virgins in the cities of Judah.

12 Princes were hanged up by their hands.

The faces of elders were not honored.

13 The young men carry millstones.

The children stumbled under loads of wood.

[..]

16 The crown has fallen from our head.

Woe to us, for we have sinned!

17 For this our heart is faint.

For these things our eyes are dim.