For mourns see 4.28 and 8.21.

Gates is here used to refer to “cities” (Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) or “towns” (New Jerusalem Bible). A city was enclosed by a wall for protection and was entered by a gate. In this respect a city or town was different from a village or open place in the country.

The verb languish is used elsewhere only in 15.9. In Hebrew it sounds similar to “mourns” and literally means to “dry up” (of the fields in Isa 16.8) or “waste away” (of a woman in 1Sam 2.5).

Her people is literally “they,” but a literal rendering in English would make the pronoun refer back to her gates in the previous line.

Lament is found elsewhere only in 4.28 (Revised Standard Version “be black”) and 8.21. On the ground refers to the custom of lying on the ground as an expression of mourning.

For the first part of the verse translators can say “Judah is in mourning; its cities are wasting away, and the people are lying on the ground in mourning.”

The cry of Jerusalem goes up: The nature of the cry is made clear in Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, which say “Jerusalem cries out for help.” In some languages it may be necessary to indicate that the people of Jerusalem are the ones crying out for help.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .