Lamentations 4:6-8

New International Reader's Version

⁶ My people have been punished
    more than Sodom was.
It was destroyed in a moment.
    No one offered it a helping hand.

⁷ Jerusalem’s princes were brighter than snow.
    They were whiter than milk.
Their bodies were redder than rubies.
    They looked like lapis lazuli.

⁸ But now they are blacker than coal.
    No one even recognizes them in the streets.
Their skin is wrinkled on their bones.
    It has become as dry as a stick.