The fourth acrostic, starker, contrasting before and after. The gold is become dim; the precious sons of Zion, once worth their weight in fine gold, are esteemed as earthen pitchers. Nursing animals feed their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel; infants ask bread and no man breaks it to them; those raised in scarlet embrace dunghills. The Nazirites, purer than snow and whiter than milk, are now blacker than a coal. Compassionate women boiled their own children. The city fell because of the sins of her prophets and priests. 'The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah, was taken in their pits' (4:20). Edom is told to rejoice while she can, the cup will pass to her.

Drawn from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory, Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary, John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and John Calvin, Commentaries.

Context

Poetry · Jeremiah — Lamentations overview

A. 1–11 The Gold Grown Dim; Precious Sons as Earthen Pitchers
B. 12–20 The Sins of Her Prophets; the Breath of Our Nostrils Taken
C. 21–22 Rejoice, Daughter of Edom — the Cup Shall Pass to Thee

Top cross-references8 chapters ▾

Lamentations 23 verses
- Lamentations 2:11My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
- Lamentations 2:19Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.
- Lamentations 2:20Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Read Lamentations 2 →
Ezekiel 72 verses
- Ezekiel 7:2“O son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says to the land of Israel: ‘The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.
- Ezekiel 7:19They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem unclean. Their silver and gold cannot save them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their appetites or fill their stomachs with wealth, for it became the stumbling block that brought their iniquity.
- Read Ezekiel 7 →
Isaiah 12 verses
- Isaiah 1:15When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.
- Isaiah 1:21See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!
- Read Isaiah 1 →
Psalms 1372 verses
- Psalms 137:6May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!
- Psalms 137:7Remember, O LORD, the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell: “Destroy it,” they said, “tear it down to its foundations!”
- Read Psalms 137 →

4 more chapters this one speaks with

Lamentations 52 verses
- Lamentations 5:10Our skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger.
- Lamentations 5:12Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect.
- Read Lamentations 5 →
Isaiah 301 verse
- Isaiah 30:14It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”
- Read Isaiah 30 →
Romans 91 verse
- Romans 9:21Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?
- Read Romans 9 →
Jeremiah 191 verse
- Jeremiah 19:11and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.
- Read Jeremiah 19 →

Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.