Lamentations 1:4

Even the roads to Zion are in mourning because no one travels on them to go to the religious festivals. All her gates are empty. Her priests groan in sadness. Her girls are suffering. She herself is in bitter distress.

Free Bible Version

In The King James Version

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.

In Context

3Judah has been dragged off into captivity, suffering miserably under brutal slavery; she lives among the nations but has no place of her own where she can rest. Those chasing her have brought her down and she cannot escape.

5Those who hated her now control her; her enemies enjoy life, because the Lord has made her suffer due to all her sins of rebellion. Her children have been taken away as prisoners of the enemy.

Read all of Lamentations 1

Cross References

Isaiah 3:26The gates of Zion will cry and mourn. The city will be like a banished woman sitting on the ground.

Isaiah 32:9Get up, you women who are lying around relaxing, and pay attention to what I'm saying! You ladies without a care in the world, listen to me!

Jeremiah 10:22Listen to the news that a noisy army is invading from a country to the north. The towns of Judah will be knocked down, they will be places where only jackals live.

Jeremiah 33:10This is what the Lord says: You call this place “a wasteland where there are no people or animals.” Well, here in the towns of Judah and in the empty streets of Jerusalem where no people or animals live, one day

Lamentations 1:18“The Lord has done what's right, because I rebelled against his instructions. Listen, everyone everywhere; look at what I'm suffering. My young women and young men have been taken off into captivity.

Lamentations 2:9Her gates have collapsed to the ground; he has destroyed their bars, breaking them apart. Her king and her princes have been exiled to other countries. No one follows the Law anymore, and even her prophets no longer receive visions from the Lord.

Matthew Henry on Lamentations 1:2-12

Lamentations Since what Solomon says, though contrary to the common opinion of the world, is certainly true, that sorrow is better than laughter, and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, we should come to the reading and consideration of the melancholy chapters of this book, not only willingly, but with an expectation to edify ourselves by them; and, that we may do this, we must compose ourselves to a holy sadness and resolve to weep with the weeping prophet. Let us consider,… Read the whole commentary →

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