Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageHow the gold has gone dark! How the purest gold is tarnished! The holy stones are strewn at the mouth of every street.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GHow the gold has grown dim! How the finest gold has changed! The sacred stones lie scattered at the head of every street.
KJV
King James VersionHow is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleHow the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner.
Footnotes
Eikah ("How!") opens this chapter as it opens chapters 1 and 2, and gives the entire book its Hebrew name — a cry of stunned, unbelieving grief at catastrophe once inconceivable. Lamentations 4 is an alphabetic acrostic: each of the 22 verses begins with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph through tav), imposing formal, almost liturgical order upon total collapse — the A-to-Z of devastation arranged with bitter poetic precision. Avnei qodesh ("holy/sacred stones") almost certainly refers to the hewn masonry of the Temple now scattered like rubble, while simultaneously anticipating v.2, where Zion's precious children are the true "stones" of the sanctuary — people and place collapsed into a single image of desolation.
