Lamentations 2

1 How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger! He has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth. He has abandoned His footstool in the day of His anger.

ALEPH. O how the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with gloom in his fury! O how he has thrown down from heaven to earth the famous one of Israel, and he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his fury.

2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes.

BETH. The Lord has cast down, and he has not been lenient, with all the beauties of Jacob. In his fury, he has destroyed the fortifications of the virgin of Judah, and he has thrown them down to the ground. He has polluted the kingdom and its leaders.

3 In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it.

GHIMEL. In the anger of his fury, he has broken the entire horn of Israel. He has drawn back his right hand before the face of the enemy. And he has kindled within Jacob a flaming fire, devouring all around.

4 He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

DALETH. He has bent his bow like an enemy. He has fixed his right hand like an adversary. And he has cut down all that was beautiful to behold in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. He has poured out his indignation like fire.

5 The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.

HE. The Lord has become like an enemy. He has thrown down Israel. He has thrown down all of his defenses. He has torn apart his fortifications. And he has filled the daughter of Judah with humbled men and humbled women.

6 He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest.

VAU. And he has torn apart her tent like a garden. He has demolished her tabernacle. In Zion, the Lord has delivered feast and Sabbath into oblivion, and king and priest into disgrace, and into the indignation of his fury.

7 The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.

ZAIN. The Lord has pushed away his own altar. He has cursed his own sanctuary. He has delivered the walls of its towers into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as if on the day of a solemnity.

8 The LORD determined to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withdraw His hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls lament; together they waste away.

HETH. The Lord has decided to tear down the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out his measuring line, and he has not turned away his hand from perdition. And the rampart has mourned, and with the wall it has been torn apart.

9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and shattered their bars. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and even her prophets find no vision from the LORD.

TETH. Her gates have been buried in the ground. He has ruined and crushed its bars. Her king and her princes are with the Gentiles. There is no law, and her prophets have found no vision from the Lord.

10 The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.

JOD. The elders of the daughter of Zion have become idle; they sit on the ground. They have sprinkled their heads with ashes. They have been wrapped with haircloth. The virgins of Jerusalem have cast their heads down to the ground.

11 My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

CAPH. My eyes have exhausted their tears. My internal organs have become disturbed. My liver has been poured out on the earth, over the grief of the daughter of my people, when the little ones and the infants passed away in the streets of the town.

12 They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers.

LAMED. They said to their mothers, “Where is the wheat and the wine?” when they fell like the wounded in the streets of the city, when they breathed out their lives into the bosoms of their mothers.

13 What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you?

MEM. To what shall I compare you, or to what shall I liken you, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what shall I equate you, so as to console you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your destruction is as great as the sea. Who will cure you?

14 The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading.

NUN. Your prophets have seen false and foolish things for you. And they have not laid open your iniquity, so as to provoke you to repentance. Yet they have seen for you false revelations and banishments.

15 All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”

SAMECH. All those who passed by the way have clapped their hands over you. They have hissed and shook their heads over the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city of perfect dignity, the joy of all the earth?”

16 All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!”

PHE. All your enemies have opened their mouth over you. They have hissed and gnashed their teeth, and they said: “We will devour her. Yes, this is the day we waited for. We have found it, we have seen it.”

17 The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.

AIN. The Lord has done what he decided to do. He has fulfilled his word, which he instructed since the days of antiquity. He has destroyed, and he has not been lenient, and he has caused the enemy to rejoice over you, and he has exalted the horn of your adversaries.

18 The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest.

SADE. Their heart cried out to the Lord from the walls of the daughter of Zion. Let tears run down like a torrent throughout the day and the night. Do not give rest to yourself, and do not allow the pupil of your eye to cease.

19 Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.

COPH. Rise up. Give praise in the night, in the first of the watches. Pour out your heart like water before the sight of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him on behalf of the souls of your little ones, who have passed away from famine at the head of all the crossroads.

20 Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

RES. O Lord, see and consider those whom you have made into such a vintage. So then, shall women eat their own fruit, little ones measured by the palm of the hand? Shall priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion.

SIN. The boy and the old man lie down on the ground outside. My virgins and my youths have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your fury. You have struck down, and you have not shown pity.

22 You summoned my attackers on every side, as for the day of an appointed feast. In the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped or survived; my enemy has destroyed those I nurtured and reared.

THAU. You have called, as if to a day of solemnity, those who would terrify me all around. And there was no one, in the day of the fury of the Lord, who escaped or was left behind. Those whom I educated and nourished, my enemy has consumed.