Lamentations 4:3-12

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

³ Even the jackals offer the breast
    and nurse their young,
but my people has become cruel,
    like the ostriches in the wilderness.

⁴ The tongue of the infant sticks
    to the roof of its mouth for thirst;
the children beg for food,
    but no one gives them anything.

⁵ Those who feasted on delicacies
    perish in the streets;
those who were brought up in purple
    cling to ash heaps.

⁶ For the chastisement^[a] of my people has been greater
    than the punishment^[b] of Sodom,
which was overthrown in a moment,
    though no hand was laid on it.^[c]

⁷ Her princes were purer than snow,
    whiter than milk;
their bodies were more ruddy than coral,
    their hair^[d] like sapphire.^[e]

⁸ Now their visage is blacker than soot;
    they are not recognized in the streets.
Their skin has shriveled on their bones;
    it has become as dry as wood.

⁹ Happier were those pierced by the sword
    than those pierced by hunger,
whose life drains away, deprived
    of the produce of the field.

¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women
    have boiled their own children;
they became their food
    in the destruction of my people.

¹¹ The Lord gave full vent to his wrath;
    he poured out his hot anger,
and kindled a fire in Zion
    that consumed its foundations.

¹² The kings of the earth did not believe,
    nor did any of the inhabitants of the world,
that foe or enemy could enter
    the gates of Jerusalem.