We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price.
Our water for money we have drunk, Our wood for a price doth come.
Our water have we to drink for money, our wood cometh unto us for a price.
Voices1
Thus, "our" means the water which we need, the commonest necessary of life. our wood--In Judea each one could get wood without pay; in Babylon, "our wood," the wood we need, must be paid for.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871reformed
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
Lamentations — Five poems over the ruin of Jerusalem. The first four are alphabetic acrostics — every letter of the Hebrew alphabet drafted to hold the weight of grief. At the book's centre, mercy renewed every morning.
The walk8
Two steps out along the cross-reference floor, votes-ranked — destinations reached by more than one path rise (the text's own hubs). Every stop is a page, and every stop travels with its words.
Through
Isaiah 3:1For, behold, the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah stay and staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water;
leads to
Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by…
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.
Son of man, when a land sinneth against me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out my hand upon it, and break the staff of the bread thereof, and send famine upon it,…
Therefore saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies;
My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die in the…
Through
Deuteronomy 28:48therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies that Jehovah shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron…
leads to
Go, and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith Jehovah: Thou hast broken the bars of wood; but thou hast made in their stead bars of iron.
so that Jehovah could not longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land become a desolation, and an astonishment, and…
But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done,…
The whole web at once: see the Arc.
The verses this one reaches5
For, behold, the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah stay and staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water;
Far from the noise of archers, in the places of drawing water, There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of Jehovah, Even the righteous acts of his rule in Israel. Then the people of Jehovah went down to the gates.
therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies that Jehovah shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.
Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof; according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, even three hundred and ninety days, shalt thou eat thereof.
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.