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1:1 How the city sits in solitary, which was full of people! How has she become as a widow! She who was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how has she become tributary!
1:2 She weeps sorely in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.
1:3 Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude. She dwells among the heathen, she finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
1:4 The ways of Zion mourn because none come to the solemn feasts. All her gates are desolate.1 Her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
1:5 Her adversaries are the greater, her enemies prosper for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.
1:6 And all her beauty has departed from the daughter of Zion. Her princes have become like harts that find no pasture, and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.
1:7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none helped her. The adversaries saw her and mocked at her sabbaths.
1:8 Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she is removed. All that honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness: yes, she sighs and turns backward.
1:9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she does not remember her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully. She had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction for the enemy has magnified himself.
1:10 The adversary has spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things for she has seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom you commanded that they should not enter into your congregation.
1:11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for food to relieve the soul. See, O LORD, and consider for I have become vile.
1:12 Is it nothing to you, all of you who pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow, which is done to me, with which the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
1:13 From above has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet, he has turned me back, and he has made me desolate and faint all the day.
1:14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand. They are wreathed and come up upon my neck. He has made my strength to fail; the LORD has delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
1:15 The LORD has trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me. He has called an assembly against me to crush my young men. The LORD has trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
1:16 For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed.
1:17 Zion spreads forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her. The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him. Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman [unclean] among them.
1:18 The LORD is righteous for I have rebelled against his commandment. Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.
1:19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their food to relieve their souls.
1:20 Behold, O LORD for I am in distress. My bowels are troubled; my heart is turned within me for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad the sword bereaves; at home there is as death.
1:21 They have heard that I sigh. There is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have called, and they shall be like me.
1:22 Let all their wickedness come before you; and do to them, as you have done to me for all my transgressions for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
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1 The ways of Zion mourn because none come to the solemn feasts. All her gates are desolate. From the Voice of the Lord: Strive to enter through the narrow gate. Few will find it. Men have stopped trying. They have plunged themselves into iniquity. Fat men of increase would have a god fat of increase, so they can use God to become holy or to become fat. Men have stopped trying because the false preachers of Christendom, with less righteousness than the Pharisees who killed Christ, stand blocking the door to the kingdom at the beginning of the path to righteousness, saying: because you believe, don't fear God, don't seek God, don't strive to enter by the narrow gate, and don't obey. Yet the pursuit of obedience leads to righteousness; and seeking God is the whole purpose of life!
He [God] has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,
and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him,
though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being; Acts 17:26-28
one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in you all. Eph 4:6
Seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. Deu 4:29
Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey,
whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? Rom 6:16Miguel de Molinos amplifies this mourning substantially. From the last chapter of his The Spiritual Guide:
O we children of men, how long shall we follow after lying and vanity? Who is it that has thus deceived us, that we should forsake God our greatest good? Who is it that speaks the most truth to us? Who is it that loves us most? Who defends us most? Who is it that does more to show himself a friend, who more tender to show himself a spouse, and more good to be a Father that our blindness should be so great, that we should all forsake this greatest and infinite goodness?
O divine Lord! What a few souls are there in the world, which do serve you with perfection! How small is the number of those, who are willing to suffer, that they may follow Christ crucified, that they may embrace the cross, that they may deny and condemn themselves! O what a scarcity of souls is there, which are disinterested and totally naked! How few are those souls which are dead to themselves and alive to God, which are totally resigned to his divine good pleasure! How few those, who are adorned with simple obedience, profound knowledge of themselves; and true humility! How few those, which with an entire indifference give up themselves into the hands of God, to do what he pleases with them! How few are there of those pure souls which be of a simple and disinterested heart, and which, putting off their own understanding, knowledge, desire and will, do long for self-denial and spiritual death! O what a scarcity of souls is there which are willing to let the divine creator work in them a mind to suffer, that they may not suffer, and to die, that they may not die! How few are the souls which are willing to forget themselves, to free their hearts from their own affections, their own desires, their own satisfactions, their own love and judgments! That are willing to be led by the highway of self-denial and the internal way! That are willing to be annihilated, dying to themselves and their senses! That are willing to let themselves be emptied, purified and unclothed, that God may fill and clothe and perfect them! In a word, how small, O Lord, is the number of those souls which are blind, deaf and dumb and perfectly silent!
O the shame of us the children of Adam! who, for a thing of mere vileness, do despise true felicity, and hinder our greatest good, the rich treasure and infinite goodness! Great reason has heaven to lament, that there are so few souls to follow its precious pathway. The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts; all her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. Lam. 1:4
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