Lamentations 4: Gold cannot purchase bread

Lamentations 4 measures collapse through things that no longer hold their former value or function. Gold dims, sanctuary stones lie scattered, and people once regarded as precious are treated like common pottery. Hunger then strips social distinction of meaning. Those raised with delicacies and scarlet share the streets with starving children, while once striking figures become unrecognizable. The poem's most horrifying images show famine turning ordinary care inside out. Religious authority fares no better. Prophets and priests are accused of shedding innocent blood, and those associated with holiness become people others recoil from as unclean. The city once assumed to be secure proves breachable, foreign assistance proves unable to save, and the Lord's anointed, under whose shadow the people expected to survive, is captured. The closing turn toward Edom prevents the spectators of Zion's humiliation from imagining themselves permanently outside judgment, while Zion is told that the punishment in view has an end.