Lamentations
Chapter Two
1 ¶ How the Lord
has covered the daughter of Zion With a cloud in His anger! He cast down from
heaven to the earth The beauty of Israel, And did not remember His footstool
In the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up and has not 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; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger Every horn of Israel; He has drawn back His
right hand From before the enemy. He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming
fire Devouring all around.
4 Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow; With His right hand, like an
adversary, He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye; On the tent of the
daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury like fire.
5 The Lord was like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up
all her palaces; He has destroyed her strongholds, And has increased mourning
and lamentation In the daughter of Judah.
6 He has done violence to His tabernacle, As 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 spurned the king
and the priest.
7 The Lord has spurned His altar, He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has given
up the walls of her palaces Into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise
in the house of the LORD As on the day of a set feast.
8 The LORD has purposed to destroy The wall of the daughter of Zion. He 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stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying; Therefore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.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations; The Law is no more, And her
prophets find no vision from the LORD.
10 ¶ The elders of the daughter of Zion Sit on the ground and keep silence;
They throw dust on their heads And gird themselves with sackcloth. The virgins
of Jerusalem Bow their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes fail with tears, My heart is troubled; My bile is poured on the ground
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the children
and the infants Faint in the streets of the city.
12 They 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.
13 How shall I console you? 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?
14 Your prophets have seen for you False and deceptive visions; They have not
uncovered your iniquity, To bring back your captives, But have envisioned for
you false prophecies and delusions.
15 All who pass by clap their hands at you; They hiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem: "Is this the city that is called 'The perfection
of beauty, The joy of the whole earth'?"
16 All your enemies have opened their mouth against you; They hiss and gnash
their teeth. They say, "We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day
we have waited for; We have found it, we have seen it!"
17 The LORD has done what He purposed; 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 rejoice over you; He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord, "O wall of the daughter of Zion,
Let tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no relief; Give
your eyes no rest.
19 "Arise, cry out in the night, At the beginning of the watches; Pour
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 at the head of
every street."
20 "See, O LORD, and consider! To whom have You done this? Should the women
eat their offspring, The children they have cuddled? Should the priest and prophet
be slain In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 "Young and old lie On the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young
men Have fallen by the sword; 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 The terrors that surround me. In
the day of the LORD'S anger There was no refugee or survivor. Those whom I have
borne and brought up My enemies have destroyed."
Go to Chapter Three
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