The elders have left the city gate; the young men have stopped their music.
Parallel translations
- WEB The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music.
- KJV The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.
- NKJV The elders have ceased gathering at the gate, And the young men from their music.
- NASB Elders are absent from the gate, Young men from their music.
- NLT The elders no longer sit in the city gates; the young men no longer dance and sing.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The elders no longer gather at the city gate and the young men no longer make music. Both wise governance and ordinary joy have ceased.
Overview
The gate was the center of justice and counsel where elders presided, and music was the sound of communal gladness; both have fallen silent. Their absence signals the collapse of public life and celebration alike. The verse shows how sin's consequences silence both order and joy, while the gospel promises a restored city where neither justice nor song will ever fail (Isaiah 35:10).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Jer 7:34I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”
- Ezek 26:13So I will silence the sound of your songs, and the music of your lyres will no longer be heard.
- Isa 24:7–11The new wine dries up, the vine withers. All the merrymakers now groan.
- Rev 18:22And the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will never ring out in you again. Nor will any craftsmen of any trade be found in you again, nor the sound of a millstone be heard in you again.
- Deut 16:18You are to appoint judges and officials for your tribes in every town that the LORD your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.
- Jer 16:9For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to remove from this place, before your very eyes and in your days, the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom.
- Job 30:1“But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to entrust with my sheep dogs.
- Jer 25:10Moreover, I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.
- Job 30:31My harp is tuned to mourning and my flute to the sound of weeping.
- Job 29:7–17When I went out to the city gate and took my seat in the public square,
- Lam 2:10The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
- Lam 1:19I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.
- Lam 1:4The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish.
- Isa 3:2–3the mighty man and the warrior, the judge and the prophet, the soothsayer and the elder,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 5:14 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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