Let us lift up our hearts with [our] hands to the lofty One in heaven.
Hebrew / Jewish
Septuagint (Greek Old Testament)
Lamentations
We have sinned, we have transgressed; and thou hast not pardoned.
Samech. Thou hast visited [us] in wrath, and driven us away: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
Thou hast veiled thyself with a cloud because of prayer, that I might be blind,
and be cast off. Ain. Thou hast set us [alone] in the midst of the nations.
All our enemies have opened their mouth against us.
Fear and wrath are come upon us, suspense and destruction.
Mine eye shall pour down torrents of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Phe. Mine eye is drowned [with tears], and I will not be silent, so that there shall be no rest,
until the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
Mine eye shall prey upon my soul, because of all the daughters of the city.
Tsade. The fowlers chased me as a sparrow, all mine enemies destroyed my life in a pit without cause,
and laid a stone upon me.
Water flowed over my head: I said, I am cut off.
Koph. I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the lowest dungeon.
Thou heardest my voice: close not thine ears to my supplication.
Thou drewest nigh to my help: in the day wherein I called upon thee thou saidst to me, Fear not.
Rechs. O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
Thou hast seen, O Lord, my troubles: thou hast judged my cause.
Thou hast seen all their vengeance, [thou hast looked] on all their devices against me.
Chsen. Thou hast heard their reproach [and] all their devices against me;
the lips of them that rose up against me, and their plots against me all the day;
their sitting down and their rising up: look thou upon their eyes.
Thou wilt render them a recompence, O Lord, according to the works of their hands.
Thau. Thou wilt give them [as] a covering, the grief of my heart.
Thou wilt persecute them in anger, and wilt consume them from under the heaven, O Lord.
Aleph. How will the gold be tarnished, [and] the fine silver changed! the sacred stones have been poured forth at the top of all the streets.
Beth. The precious sons of Zion, who were equalled in value with gold, how are they counted as earthen vessels, the works of the hands of the potter!
Gimel. Nay, serpents have drawn out the breasts, they give suck to their young, the daughters of my people are incurably cruel, as an ostrich in a desert.
Daleth. The tongue of the sucking child cleaves to the roof of its mouth for thirst: the little children ask for bread, [and] there is none to break [it] to them.
He. They that feed on dainties are desolate in the streets: they that used to be nursed in scarlet have clothed themselves with dung.
Vau. And the iniquity of the daughter of my people has been increased beyond the iniquities of Sodoma, [the city] that was overthrown very suddenly, and none laboured against her [with their] hands.
Zain. Her Nazarites were made purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were purified [as] with fire, their polishing was superior to sapphire stone.
Heth. Their countenance is become blacker than smoke; they are not known in the streets: their skin has cleaved to their bones; they are withered, they are become as a stick.
Teth. The slain with the sword were better than they that were slain with hunger: they have departed, pierced through from [want of] the fruits of the field.
Jod. The hands of tender-hearted women have sodden their own children: they became meat for them in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Chaph. The Lord has accomplished his wrath; he has poured out his fierce anger, and has kindled a fire in Sion, and it has devoured her foundations.
Lamed. The kings of the earth, [even] all that dwell in the world, believed not that an enemy and oppressor would enter through the gates of Jerusalem.
Mem. For the sins of her prophets, [and] iniquities of her priests, who shed righteous blood in the midst of her,
Nun. her watchmen staggered in the streets, they were defiled with blood in their weakness, they touched their raiment [with it].
Samech. Depart ye from the unclean ones: call ye them: depart, depart, touch [them] not: for they are on fire, yea, they stagger: say ye among the nations, They shall no more sojourn [there].
Ain. The presence of the Lord [was] their portion; [but] he will not again look upon them: they regarded not the person of the priests, they pitied not the prophets.
Phe. While we yet lived our eyes failed, while we looked in vain for our help. Tsade. We looked to a nation that could not save.
We have hunted [for] our little ones, that they should not walk in our streets. Koph. Our time has drawn nigh, our days are fulfilled, our time is come.
Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky, they flew on the mountains, in the wilderness they laid wait for us.
Rechs. The breath of our nostrils, [our] anointed Lord, was taken in their destructive snares, of whom we said, In his shadow we shall live among the Gentiles.
Chsen. Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Idumea, that dwellest in the land: yet the cup of the Lord shall pass through to thee: thou shalt be drunken, and pour forth.
Thau. O daughter of Sion, thine iniquity has come to an end; he shall no more carry thee captive: he has visited thine iniquities, O daughter of Edom; he has discovered thy sins.
Remember, O Lord, what has happened to us: behold, and look on our reproach.
Our inheritance has been turned away to aliens, our houses to strangers:
we are become orphans, we have no father, our mothers are as widows.
We have drunk our water for money; our wood is sold to us [for a burden] on our neck:
we have been persecuted, we have laboured, we have had no rest.
Egypt gave the hand [to us], Assur to their own satisfaction.
Our fathers sinned, [and] are not: we have borne their iniquities.
Servants have ruled over us: there is none to ransom [us] out of their hand.
We shall bring in our bread with [danger of] our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.
Our skin is blackened like an oven; they are convulsed, because of the storms of famine.
They humbled the women in Sion, the virgins in the cities of Juda.
Princes were hanged up by their hands: the elders were not honoured.
The chosen men lifted up [the voice in] weeping, and the youths fainted under the wood.
And the elders ceased from the gate, the chosen men ceased from their music.
The joy of our heart has ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
The crown has fallen [from] our head: yea, woe to us! for we have sinned.
For this has grief come; our heart is sorrowful: for this our eyes are darkened.
Over the mountain of Sion, because it is made desolate, foxes have walked therein.
But thou, O Lord, shalt dwell for ever; thy throne [shall endure] to generation and generation.
Wherefore wilt thou utterly forget us, and abandon us a long time?
Turn us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be turned; and renew our days as before.
For thou hast indeed rejected us; thou hast been very wroth against us.
Ezekiel
Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, that I was in the midst of the captivity by the river of Chobar; and the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
On the fifth day of the month; this was the fifth year of the captivity of king Joakim.
And the word of the Lord came to Jezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river of Chobar; and the hand of the Lord was upon me.
And I looked, and, behold, a sweeping wind came from the north, and a great cloud on it, and [there was] brightness round about it, and gleaming fire, and in the midst of it as it were the appearance of amber in the midst of the fire, and brightness in it.
And in the midst as it were the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; the likeness of a man was upon them.
And each one [had] four faces, and each one [had] four wings.
And their legs were straight; and their feet were winged, and [there were] sparks, like gleaming brass, and their wings were light.
And the hand of a man was under their wings on their four sides.
And the faces of them four turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.
And the likeness of their faces was the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right to the four; and the face of a calf on the left to the four; and the face of an eagle to the four.
And the four had their wings spread out above; each one [had] two joined to one another, and two covered their bodies.
And each one went straight forward: wherever the spirit was going they went, and turned not back.
And in the midst of the living creatures [there was] an appearance as of burning coals of fire, as an appearance of lamps turning among the living creatures; and the brightness of fire, and out of the fire came forth lightning.
And I looked, and, behold, the four [had each] one wheel on the ground near the living creatures.
And the appearance of the wheels was as the appearance of beryl: and the four had one likeness: and their work was as it were a wheel in a wheel.
They went on their four sides: they turned not as they went;
neither did their backs [turn]: and they were high: and I beheld them, and the backs of them four were full of eyes round about.
And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures lifted themselves off the earth, the wheels were lifted off.
Wherever the cloud happened to be, there was the spirit ready to go: the wheels went and were lifted up with them; because the spirit of life was in the wheels.
When those went, [the wheels] went; and when those stood, [the wheels] stood; and when those lifted themselves off the earth, they were lifted off with them: for the spirit of life was in the wheels.
And the likeness over the heads of the living creatures was as a firmament, as the appearance of crystal, spread out over their wings above.
And their wings were spread out under the firmament, reaching one to the other; two [wings] to each, covering their bodies.
And I heard the sound of their wings when they went, as the sound of much water: and when they stood, their wings were let down.
And lo! a voice from above the firmament
that was over their head, [there was] as the appearance of a sapphire stone, [and] the likeness of a throne upon it: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as an appearance of a man above.
And I saw as it were the resemblance of amber from the appearance of the loins and upwards, and from the appearance of the loins and under I saw an appearance of fire, and the brightness thereof round about.
As the appearance of the bow when it is in the cloud in days of rain, so was the form of the brightness round about.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And I saw and fell upon my face, and heard the voice of one speaking: and he said to me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak to thee.
And the Spirit came upon me, and took me up, and raised me, and set me on my feet: and I heard him speaking to me.
And he said to me, Son of man, I send thee forth to the house of Israel, them that provoke me; who have provoked me, they and their fathers, to this day.