Lamentations 4:1-9 How the gold has become dim; the fine gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

MKJV⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ How the gold has become dim; the fine gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street. ² The precious sons of Zion are weighed against pure gold; how they are counted as earthen vessels, the work of a potter's hand! ³ Even the jackals draw out the breast; they suckle their young ones. The daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. ⁴ The suckling's tongue cleaves to his palate in thirst; the young children ask bread; there is no breaking to them. ⁵ Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those reared in scarlet embrace dunghills. ⁶ And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is heaped more than the sin of Sodom, overthrown as in a moment, and no hands spun on her. ⁷ Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were redder of bone than corals; their cuttings as lapis lazuli, azure blue. ⁸ Their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it is dried up; it has become like wood. ⁹ Better are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger; those who pine away, pierced because the fruits of my fields failed.