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.

Oh how hath the Lord covered in his anger the daughter of Zion with a cloud; he hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the ornament of Israel; and he hath not remembered his footstool on the day of his anger!

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.

The Lord hath destroyed and hath not pitied all the habitation of Jacob: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong-holds of the daughter of Judah: he hath thrown them down to the ground; he hath defiled the kingdom and its princes.

3 In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy.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.

He hath hewn away in his fierce anger the whole horn of Israel; he hath drawn back his right hand before the enemy; and he burnt against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

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.

He bent his bow like an enemy; he held out his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye: in the tent of the daughter of Zion did he pour out like fire his fury.

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.

The Lord became like an enemy; he destroyed Israel, he destroyed all her palaces, he ruined her strong-holds, and he increased in the midst of the daughter of Judah groaning and wailing.

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.

And he violently wasted, as if it were a garden, his tabernacle; he destroyed his place of assembly: [yea, ] the Lord hath caused to be forgotten in Zion the solemn feast and the day of rest, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger both king and priest.

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.

The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath made void his sanctuary, he hath surrendered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: they have made their voice to resound in the house of the Lord, as on a day of a solemn feast.

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.

The Lord hath resolved to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring-line, he withdrew not his hand from destroying: and he caused the rampart and the wall to mourn; together they languish.

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.

Sunk into the ground are her gates, he hath ruined and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the nations without any law; her prophets also obtain no more any 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.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence: they have thrown dust upon their head; they have girt themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem have brought down low their head 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.

My eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are heated, my liver is poured upon the earth because of the breach of the daughter of my people; because babes and sucklings faint 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.

To their mothers they say, Where is corn and wine? when they faint away like the deadly wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul is poured out on the bosom of their mother.

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?

What shall I take to witness for thee? what shall I compare unto thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I find equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for great like the sea is thy breach; who can bring healing to thee?

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.

Thy prophets foresaw for thee vain and deceptive things; and they did not lay open thy iniquity, to cause thy backsliders to return: but they foresaw for thee prophecies of falsehood and seduction.

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?”

All that pass by [this] way clap their hands on account of thee; they hiss and shake their head over the daughter of Jerusalem: [saying, ] Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty. The joy for 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!”

All thy enemies open wide their mouth against thee; they hiss and gnash their teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up: ah, truly this is the day that we hoped for; we have found, 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.

The Lord hath done what he had resolved; he hath accomplished his word which he had ordained already in the days of old; he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied; and he hath caused to rejoice over thee thy enemy, he hath raised on high the horn of thy 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.

Their heart crieth unto the Lord, O thou wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a stream day and night; allow thyself no rest; let not the apple of thy eye be still.

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.

Arise, complain aloud in the night, in the beginning of the watches; pour out like water thy heart before the face of the Lord: lift up toward him thy hands because of the life of thy babes, that faint away for hunger at the corner of all the streets.

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?

See, O Lord, and behold! to whom hast thou ever done the like? Shall women, then, eat their own fruit, the babes they have tenderly nursed? or shall there be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord the priest and the prophet?

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.

There lie down on the ground in the streets the lad and the ancient: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: thou hast slain on the day of thy anger; thou hast slaughtered, thou hast not pitied.

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.

Thou hast called, as it were on a festive day, my evil neighbors from round about; and there was not on the day of the Lord's anger one that escaped or remained: those that I had tenderly nursed and reared up my enemy brought to their end.