- 1 Lamentations 1 1 Lamentations 1 (22 verses in the MT) opens: How does the city sit solitary, full of people! is she become as a widow! she great among the nations, princess among the provinces, is she become tributary! The middle of the chapter continues: nothing to you, all you that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow, which is done to me, wherewith YHWH has afflicted in the day of his fierce anger. It closes: Let all their wickedness come before you; and do to them, as you have done to me for all my transgressions: for my sighs many, and my heart faint.
- 2 Lamentations 2 2 Lamentations 2 (22 verses in the MT) opens: How has YHWH covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! The middle of the chapter continues: They say to their mothers, Where corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom. It closes: You have called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of YHWH's anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up has mine enemy consumed.
- 3 Lamentations 3 3 Lamentations 3 (66 verses in the MT) opens: I the man has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. The middle of the chapter continues: To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, It closes: Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of YHWH.
- 4 Lamentations 4 4 Lamentations 4 (22 verses in the MT) opens: How is the gold become dim! is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. The middle of the chapter continues: The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem. It closes: The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry you away into captivity: he will visit your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover your sins.
- 5 Lamentations 5 5 Lamentations 5 (22 verses in the MT) opens: Remember, O YHWH, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. The middle of the chapter continues: Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured. It closes: But you have utterly rejected us; you are very wroth against us.