Lamentations 2:5–11

5 The Lord is like an enemy;m

he has swallowed up Israel.

He has swallowed up all her palaces

and destroyed her strongholds.n

He has multiplied mourning and lamentationo

for Daughter Judah.p

6 He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden;

he has destroyedq his place of meeting.r

The Lord has made Zion forget

her appointed festivals and her Sabbaths;s

in his fierce anger he has spurned

both king and priest.t

7 The Lord has rejected his altar

and abandoned his sanctuary.u

He has given the walls of her palacesv

into the hands of the enemy;

they have raised a shout in the house of the Lord

as on the day of an appointed festival.w

8 The Lord determined to tear down

the wall around Daughter Zion.x

He stretched out a measuring liney

and did not withhold his hand from destroying.

He made rampartsz and walls lament;

together they wasted away.a

9 Her gatesb have sunk into the ground;

their barsc he has broken and destroyed.

Her king and her princes are exiledd among the nations,

the lawe is no more,

and her prophetsf no longer find

visionsg from the Lord.

10 The elders of Daughter Zion

sit on the ground in silence;h

they have sprinkled dusti on their headsj

and put on sackcloth.k

The young women of Jerusalem

have bowed their heads to the ground.l

11 My eyes fail from weeping,m

I am in torment withinn;

my hearto is poured outp on the ground

because my people are destroyed,q

because children and infants faintr

in the streets of the city.