Lamentations 2

God’s Anger with Jerusalem

2How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion

With a ^acloud in His anger!

^bHe cast down from heaven to the earth

^cThe beauty of Israel,

And did not remember ^dHis footstool

In the day of His anger.

²The Lord has swallowed up and has ^enot pitied

All the dwelling places of Jacob.

He has thrown down in His wrath

The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;

He has brought them down to the ground;

^fHe has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

³He has cut off in fierce anger

Every ¹horn of Israel;

^gHe has drawn back His right hand

From before the enemy.

^hHe has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire

Devouring all around.

⁴ⁱStanding like an enemy, He has bent His bow;

With His right hand, like an adversary,

He has slain ^jall who were pleasing to His eye;

On the tent of the daughter of Zion,

He has poured out His fury like fire.

^5kThe Lord was like an enemy.

He has swallowed up Israel,

He has swallowed up all her palaces;

^lHe has destroyed her strongholds,

And has increased mourning and lamentation

In the daughter of Judah.

⁶He has done violence ^mto His ²tabernacle,

ⁿAs if it were a garden;

He has destroyed His place of assembly;

The Lord has caused

The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion.

In His burning indignation He has ^ospurned the king and the priest.

⁷The Lord has spurned His altar,

He has ^pabandoned His sanctuary;

He has ³given up the walls of her palaces

Into the hand of the enemy.

^qThey have made a noise in the house of the Lord

As on the day of a set feast.

⁸The Lord has ⁴purposed to destroy

The ^rwall of the daughter of Zion.

^sHe has stretched out a line;

He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying;

Therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament;

They languished together.

⁹Her gates have sunk into the ground;

He has destroyed and ^tbroken her bars.

^uHer king and her princes are among the ⁵nations;

^vThe Law is no more,

And her ^wprophets find no ⁶vision from the Lord.

¹⁰The elders of the daughter of Zion

^xSit on the ground and keep silence;

⁷They ^ythrow dust on their heads

And ^zgird themselves with sackcloth.

The virgins of Jerusalem

Bow their heads to the ground.

^11aMy eyes fail with tears,

My ⁸heart is troubled;

^bMy ⁹bile is poured on the ground

Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,

Because ^cthe children and the infants

Faint in the streets of the city.

¹²They say to their mothers,

“Where is grain and wine?”

As they swoon like the wounded

In the streets of the city,

As their life is poured out

In their mothers’ bosom.

¹³How shall I ^dconsole ¹you?

To what shall I liken you,

O daughter of Jerusalem?

What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you,

O virgin daughter of Zion?

For your ruin is spread wide as the sea;

Who can heal you?

¹⁴Your ^eprophets have seen for you

False and deceptive visions;

They have not ^funcovered your iniquity,

To bring back your captives,

But have envisioned for you false ^gprophecies and delusions.

¹⁵All who ²pass by ^hclap their hands at you;

They hiss ⁱand shake their heads

At the daughter of Jerusalem:

“Is this the city that is called

^j‘The perfection of beauty,

The joy of the whole earth’?”

^16kAll your enemies have opened their mouth against you;

They hiss and gnash their teeth.

They say, ^l“We have swallowed her up!

Surely this is the ^mday we have waited for;

We have found it, ⁿwe have seen it!”

¹⁷The Lord has done what He ^opurposed;

He has fulfilled His word

Which He commanded in days of old.

He has thrown down and has not pitied,

And He has caused an enemy to ^prejoice over you;

He has exalted the ³horn of your adversaries.

¹⁸Their heart cried out to the Lord,

“O wall of the daughter of Zion,

^qLet tears run down like a river day and night;

Give yourself no relief;

Give ⁴your eyes no rest.

¹⁹“Arise, ^rcry out in the night,

At the beginning of the watches;

^sPour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.

Lift your hands toward Him

For the life of your young children,

Who faint from hunger ^tat the head of every street.”

²⁰“See, O Lord, and consider!

To whom have You done this?

^uShould the women eat their offspring,

The children ⁵they have cuddled?

Should the priest and prophet be slain

In the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹“Young ^vand old lie

On the ground in the streets;

My virgins and my young men

Have fallen by the ^wsword;

You have slain them in the day of Your anger,

You have slaughtered and not pitied.

²²“You have invited as to a feast day

^xThe terrors that surround me.

In the day of the Lord’s anger

There was no refugee or survivor.

^yThose whom I have borne and brought up

My enemies have ^zdestroyed.”