eng_aiv Amundson Interpretive Version Lamentations Lamentations Lamentations Lam Lamentations id=eng_aiv name=Amundson Interpretive Version (AIV) status=draft spec=USFM-USX 3.1.1 export=2026-11-02 char:add=translator-addition-italic char:wj=words-of-Jesus-as-received-unmapped note:f=footnotes para:r=parallel-passage-references para:d=psalm-superscriptions How Lonely Lies the City! (2 Kings 24:10–17) How1.1 This chapter is an acrostic poem, each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. lonely sits the city once full of people! She has become like a widow, she who was great among the nations; the princess of the provinces has become a slave! She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; there is not unto her one giving comfort among all her lovers; all her companions have dealt treacherously with her, they have become to her as enemies. Judah has gone into exile for affliction and from an abundance of labor; she dwells among the nations; she finds no rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of distress. The paths to Zion are mourning no one is coming to the appointed feast, and all her gates are desolate; her priests are groaning, her virgins are grieving, and it is bitter for her. Her adversaries have become as the head, and her enemies prosper; for YHWH has afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone into captivity before the enemy. And it has departed from the Daughter of Zion— all her splendor; her princes have become like deer that find no pasture, and they flee without strength before the face of the pursuer. Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and her wandering all her desirable things that were in days before. In the falling of her people into the hand of the enemy, there was no one giving help to her; the adversaries saw her; they have laughed at her destruction. Jerusalem has sinned greatly; upon thus she has become as filth. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness;1.8 Or her shame even she herself groans and turns away. Her uncleanness is on her skirts; she did not have in mind her end, and she went down stunningly; there was no one giving comfort to her. See, O YHWH, my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed! The adversary has spread his hand over all her desirable things; for she has seen the nations come into her sanctuary, those whom You commanded not to enter into the assembly of Yours. All her people groan; they seek bread; they have given their desirable things for food, to restore the soul. See, O YHWH, and consider! For I have become lightly esteemed. Is it nothing to you⁺, all passing by this way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain, which has been dealt to me, which YHWH has inflicted in the day of the burning of His anger. From on high He has sent fire into my bones, and it prevails over them; He has spread a net for my feet, and has turned me back; He has made me desolate, all the day faint. My transgressions are bound into a yoke;1.14 Most Hebrew manuscripts; other Hebrew manuscripts and LXX He kept watch over my sins by His hand they were woven together; they came up upon my neck; He has made fail my strength; the Lord has delivered me into hands; I am not able to rise up. The Lord has rejected all my mighty men in my midst; He has summoned an army against me1.15 Or He has set a time for me; or He has called an assembly against me to crush my young men as in a winepress; the Lord has trodden on the virgin daughter of Judah! For these I am weeping; My eye, my eye is overflowing with water, because one comforting is far from me, the restorer of my soul; my children have become desolate because the enemy has prevailed. Zion spreads out with her hands, there is no one giving comfort to her; YHWH has commanded concerning Jacob, that those around him be his adversaries; Jerusalem has become as an unclean thing among them. He is righteous—YHWH, for His mouth I have rebelled against. Hear now, all peoples, and see my pain! My maidens and my young men have gone into captivity. I called out to my lovers, they deceived me; my priests and my elders died off in the city while they sought food for themselves and to restore their soul. See, O YHWH, that distress is unto me! My bowels are troubled, My heart is overturned within me because I have surely rebelled. From outside the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death. They have heard that I have sighed; there is no one giving comfort to me; all my enemies have heard my trouble; they are glad that You have done it! May You bring the day You called for, and let them become like me. Let all their evil come before Your eyes, and deal with them as You have dealt with me, because of all my transgressions; for many are my groans, and my heart is faint. God’s Anger over Jerusalem How2.1 This chapter is an acrostic poem, each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. the Lord has covered with His nose the daughter of Zion! He has cast from the heavens to the earth the beauty of Israel, and He did not remember the stool for His feet on the day of His anger! The Lord has swallowed up and He has not pitied all the dwelling places of Jacob; He has thrown down in His wrath the fortifications of the daughter of Judah; He has made them touch to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes. He has cut off in the burning of His anger every horn2.3 Or all the strength of Israel; He has turned back His right hand from before the enemy, and He has blazed against Jacob like a fire of flame, devouring all around! He has bent His bow like an enemy, standing with His right hand like an adversary, and He has slain all those desirable to His eye; on the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury like fire. The Lord has been like an enemy! He has swallowed up Israel, has swallowed up all her palaces; He has destroyed her strongholds, and He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. He has treated violently His booth as a garden; He has destroyed His appointed place; YHWH has caused to be forgotten in Zion the appointed feast and Sabbath, and He has spurned in the rage of His anger king and priest! The Lord has rejected His altar; He has disowned His sanctuary; He has shut up in the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; a voice they have given forth in the house of YHWH as on the day of the appointed feast. YHWH has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line; He has not turned back His hand from destroying; the rampart and wall He has caused to lament, and together they have languished. Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars; her king and her princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets cannot find vision from YHWH. They sit on the ground and are silent— the elders of the daughter of Zion; they have thrown up dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth; they have bowed their heads to the ground, the virgins of Jerusalem. My eyes end in tears, my bowels are troubled; my liver is poured to the ground over the destruction of the daughter of my people, at the fainting of the infants and sucklings in the streets of the city! To their mothers they say, “Where is the grain and wine?” In their becoming feeble like a wounded one in the streets of the city, in the pouring out their soul into the bosom of their mothers. What can I say about you; to what shall I liken you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you that I might comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your brokenness is as great as the sea— who can bring healing to you? Your prophets have seen for you emptiness and foolish things, and they have not uncovered about your iniquity, to turn back your captivity, and they have seen for you burdens of emptiness and enticements. They clap the hands at you all those passing by on the way; they hiss and shake their heads over the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that they called the fullness of beauty, the joy of all the earth?” They have opened their mouth against you— all your enemies; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say: “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day we have awaited— we have found it, we have seen!” YHWH has done what He planned, and has fulfilled His word, which He commanded from days before; He has overthrown, and He has not spared; the enemy He has made glad over you, and He has raised high the horn2.17 Or the strength of your adversaries. Their heart has cried out to the Lord! O wall of the daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a torrent day and night; do not give ceasing to yourself, do not give rest to the daughter of your eye! Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches!2.19 That is, between six and nine at night Pour out your heart like waters before the face of the Lord! Lift up toward Him your hands over the soul of your infants, those weakened by hunger in the head of every street! See, O YHWH, and consider! To whom have You dealt this way? Shall women eat their own fruit, the infants of the tender care? Shall he be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord— priest and prophet? They lie on the ground in the streets young and old; my maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword; You have slain them in the day of Your anger! You have slaughtered and not spared! You have called, as on the day of an appointed feast, my terrors from around; he did not escape on the day of the anger of YHWH— escapee or survivor! Those whom I have held and brought up, my enemy has consumed them. The Prophet’s Afflictions I am3.1 This chapter is an acrostic poem, each 3–verse stanza beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath; He has led me and has made me walk in darkness, and not light; surely He turns back against me; He turns over His hand all the day. He has worn out my flesh and my skin; he has broken my bones. He has built up against me and surrounded me with bitterness and weariness; in dark places He has settled me, like the dead of old. He has put a hedge around me, so that I cannot get out; He has made heavy my chain of bronze; even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer. He has blocked off my ways with cut stone, my paths He has made crooked. A bear lying in ambush He is to me, a lion in hiding places; my ways He has turned aside, and has torn me apart; He has set me as a desolation. He has bent His bow and stood me up as the target for an arrow. He has brought into my kidneys the sons of His quiver; I have become a laughingstock to all my people, their taunt all the day. He has filled me with bitterness; He has made me drink wormwood. And He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has covered me with ashes. My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten good, and I say, “My strength has perished, and also my hope from YHWH!” The Prophet’s Hope Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the gall! It remembers well and sinks— My soul within me. This I turn to my mind; upon thus I have hope. Because of the loving devotion3.22 Forms of the Hebrew chesed are translated here and in most cases throughout the Scriptures as loving devotion; the range of meaning includes love, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and mercy, as well as loyalty to a covenant. of YHWH we are not consumed, for His mercies are not finished. They are new in the mornings— great is Your faithfulness! “My portion is YHWH,” says my soul, “Upon thus do I hope in Him.” Good is YHWH to those waiting for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. And it is good to wait and be silent for the salvation of YHWH; it is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent when it is laid upon him. Let him put in the dust his mouth; perhaps there is hope! Let him give his cheek to the one striking him; let him be filled with reproach! For the Lord will not reject us forever; for though He may bring grief, He will show compassion according to the abundance of His loving devotion; for he has not afflicted with His heart or grieved the sons of man. To crush under one’s feet all the prisoners of the earth, to stretch aside justice for a man before the face of the Most High, to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord does not approve. God’s Justice Who is this having spoken, and it came to pass, if the Lord did not command it? From the mouth of the Most High does not come forth the bad and the good? Why should complain a living man, a man for his sins? Let us search out our ways, and let us seek, and turn back to YHWH! Let us lift our heart with our hands to God in the heavens: “We have transgressed and we have rebelled; You have not forgiven.” You have covered in anger and pursued us; You have killed; You have not pitied. You have covered Yourself with a cloud, from passing through a prayer. You have made us offscouring and refuse in the midst of the nations. They have opened their mouths against us— all our enemies; terror and pitfall have come upon us, desolation and destruction! Streams of water run down my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people! My eye pours forth, and it does not cease— without numbing— until YHWH looks down and sees from the heavens! My eye bring grief to my soul because of all the daughters of my city. My enemies have hunted me relentlessly like a bird, without cause; They have cut off my life in the pit, and they threw stones at me; the waters flowed over my head; I said I have been cut off! I called on Your name, O YHWH, out of the depths of the Pit, You heard my voice: “Do not hide Your ear from my sighing, from my cry!” You drew near on the day I called you, you said, “Do not fear!” You have pleaded, O Lord, the pleadings of my soul; You have redeemed my life! You have seen, O YHWH, the wrong done to me; vindicate my cause! You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me. You have heard their taunt, O YHWH, all their plots against me, the lips of my assailants and their murmuring against me all the day, their sitting down, and their rising up— Look! I am their mocking song. May You repay to them a recompense, O YHWH, according to the work of their hands! May You give to them a covering for the heart— Your curse be upon them! May You pursue them in Your anger and destroy them from under the heavens, O YHWH! The Distress of Zion How4.1 This chapter is an acrostic poem, each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. the gold has grown dim, the pure gold has changed! The stones of holiness are poured forth at the head of every street. The precious sons of Zion were weighed with fine gold. How they are esteemed as pots of clay, the work of the hands of a potter! Even the jackals4.3 Or serpents or dragons draw out the breast and suckle their young, but the daughter of my people is cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness. The tongue of the sucking babe clings to the roof of its mouth in thirst; the little children ask for bread— there is no one dispersing it for them. Those once eating delicacies are desolate in the streets; those being set firmly in scarlet embrace heaps of rubbish. And the punishment4.6 Or iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her. Her princes were brighter than snow and whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in essence than rubies; their polishing4.7 Or their their appearance or their hair was of sapphire.4.7 Or lapis lazuli Now their appearance is darker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones, it has grown dry and become like wood. Better are those slain by the sword than those dying of hunger, who waste away from the piercing of produce the field. The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became food for them in this destruction of the daughter of my people! YHWH has fulfilled His fury, He has poured out the burning of His nose; He has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured her foundations. The kings of the earth did not believe and all those dwelling in the world, that the adversary would come and the enemy into the gates of Jerusalem, for the sins of her prophets, the iniquities of her priests, those pouring in her midst the blood of the righteous, They wandered blind in the streets, they have defiled themselves with the blood, that none would be able to touch their garments. “Turn away! Unclean!” They called out to them. “Turn away! Turn away, do not touch us!” So they fled and wandered, they said among the nations, “They shall not continue to sojourn!” The face of YHWH has scattered them; He shall not continue to look on them; the faces of the priests they do not lift up, and to the elders they do not show favor. Again our eyes came to an end, for our helper in vain; in our keeping watch we watched for a nation that could not save us. They tracked our steps, from walking in our own streets; our end came near; our days were fulfilled, for our end had come. Swifter were our pursuers than the eagles of the heavens; over the mountains they were hot after us, and in the wilderness they set an ambush for us. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of YHWH, was caught in their pits, of whom we said, “Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.” Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, dwelling in the land of Uz! Even to you shall pass over the cup, and you shall become drunk and uncover yourselves! Your guilt is complete, O daughter of Zion; He will not continue to leave you exiled.4.22 Or He will not exile you again He will visit punishment on your iniquity, O daughter of Edom! He will remove the cover over your sins. A Prayer for Restoration Remember, O YHWH, what has happened to us! Look and see our disgrace! Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, and our houses to foreigners. Fatherless we have become, and those with no father; our mothers are now like widows. Our water for silver we drink, and our wood comes in with a price. Upon our necks we are pursued; we grow weary, and no rest is unto us. To Egypt we have given our hand, to Assyria to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers sinned, and are no more, and we bear their iniquities. Servants rule over us; there is no one tearing us away from their hand. With our soul we bring in our bread before the face of the sword in the wilderness. Our skin like an oven grows hot from the face of the burning heat of famine. The women in Zion they have pressed down, and the maidens in the cities of Judah. Princes were hanged by their hands; and the faces of the elders were not honored. Young men they have taken to grind, and boys stumble under the wood. The old men have ceased from the gate; the young men from their music. The joy of our heart has ceased, our dancing has turned to mourning; the crown has fallen from our head— woe to us, for we have sinned! Upon thus our heart has become faint; for these our eyes grow dim. For Mount Zion, which is desolate; foxes have walked upon it. You, O YHWH, remain forever— Your throne from generation to generation. Why do You forget us forever? You forsake us for a length of days. Return us, O YHWH, to You, and we will return! Renew our days as of old, unless You have utterly rejected us, and remain angry with us even to exceedingly!