1. The people of Babylon sent to the people of the holy land, “We deserve to cry; we deserve to mourn the destruction of the house of our God, for we have been scattered among the nations, and we deserve to open the eulogy and interpret the alphabet, that the Lord of the world has sent as a eulogy over the ruin of His house, which is the book Eicha [Lamentations]
2. The people of the holy land sent to them, “It is true that you have been cscattered among the nations, and you are outside the holy land, and you deserve to be crying about you and about yourselves that you have gone from light into darkness like a slave exiting his master’s house. But we deserve to cry and make a eulogy, and the Creator has sent us the book of the eulogy, for we are the queen’s children, and we are from her household and know the glory of the master of the world. Therefore, we are worthy of crying and interpreting the alphabet in the book Eicha.
3. We are orphans without a father and a mother, who are the Creator and the Shechina [Divinity], since the Shechina went out from the Land of Israel into exile, and the eyes look to the wall, the house of our mother, and it is ruined, and we did not find her. She would nurse us each day in the first day, from her lush abundance, and she would comfort us and soothe us like a mother to her child, as it is written, “like a man whose mother comforts him.”
4. And now the eyes look to every side, and the place of the dwelling of our mother has been confused and ruined. We hit our heads against the walls of her house and dwelling place; who will comfort us and who will soothe us and protect us before the king?
5. When we sinned before our father, and he raised the whip so as to hit us, she stood in front of us and suffered the king’s lash in order to protect us, as it is written, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.” And now, if we have no mother, woe to us, woe to you. We deserve to cry; we deserve to mourn. We deserve to clarify all those bitter words in the book of Eicha, to make them known to those who know how to cry, the words of the eulogy.
6. Each day, we approach our mother’s bed, and do not find her there. We ask about her but there is no one to look at us. We ask her bed, but it is confused; we ask her chair; and it is fallen; we ask her halls; and they swear that they do not know of her; we ask the dust, and the imprint of her footsteps is not there.
7. We ask the roof, and the roof replies to us that she sits there and laments and howls over us, and goes from roof to roof, and laments and cries out bitterly over us, as it is written, “What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops.” We ask the roads and the trails; they all say that they heard a bitter voice of weeping that cries over her children, and they do not know where she went.
8. We deserve to cry; we deserve to mourn. We will kiss the dust of her feet; we will kiss the place where she sits; we will kiss the walls of the hall, and we will cry bitterly. We will begin with a eulogy because this is what we see each day. We will always cry, and the bitterness of the weeping will not be forgotten from us.