Lamentations 2
1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He
hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, And hath not
remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He
hath brought them down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the
princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He hath drawn back his
right hand from before the enemy: And he hath burned up Jacob like a flaming
fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an
adversary, And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the
daughter of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire.
5 The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed
up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds; And he hath multiplied in
the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he
hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused solemn assembly and
sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, And hath despised in the indignation of his
anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary; He hath
given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a
noise in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
8 Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath
stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying; And he
hath made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: Her
king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yea, her
prophets find no vision from Jehovah.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence;
They have cast up dust upon their heads; They have girded themselves with
sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon
the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the
young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the
wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their
mothers' bosom.
13 What shall I testify unto thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of
Jerusalem? What shall I compare to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin
daughter of Zion? For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen for thee false and foolish visions; And they have not
uncovered thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity, But have seen for thee
false oracles and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; They hiss and wag their head at
the daughter of Jerusalem, [saying], Is this the city that men called The
perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee; They hiss and
gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day
that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 Jehovah hath done that which he purposed; He hath fulfilled his word that he
commanded in the days of old; He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: And he
hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee; He hath exalted the horn of thine
adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord: O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears
run down like a river day and night; Give thyself no respite; let not the apple
of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out thy
heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up thy hands toward him for
the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every
street.
20 See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat
their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and
the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my
young men are fallen by the sword: Thou hast slain them in the day of thine
anger; Thou hast slaughtered, [and] not pitied.
22 Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every
side; And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger:
Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.