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-BET] How the Lord clouds in His anger the daughter of Zion, He has cast from the heavens [to] earth the beauty of Israel, And has not remembered His footstool in 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 has swallowed up, He has not pitied any of the pleasant places of Jacob, He has broken down in His wrath The fortresses of the daughter of Judah, He has caused to come to the earth, He 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3 In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy.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 has cut off in the heat of anger every horn of Israel, He has turned backward His right hand From the face of the enemy, And He burns against Jacob as a flaming fire, It has devoured 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.

He has bent His bow as an enemy, His right hand has stood as an adversary, And He slays all the desirable ones of the eye, In the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out as 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 has been as an enemy, He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up all her palaces, He has destroyed His fortresses, And He multiplies in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning.

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 shakes as a garden His dwelling place, He has destroyed His appointed place, YHWH has forgotten in Zion the appointed time and Sabbath, And despises, in the indignation of His anger, 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 has cast off His altar, He has rejected His sanctuary, He has shut up into the hand of the enemy The walls of her palaces, A noise they have made in the house of YHWH Like a day of appointment.

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.

YHWH has devised to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion, He has stretched out a line, He has not turned His hand from destroying, And He causes bulwark and wall to mourn, Together—they have been weak.

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 earth have her gates, He has destroyed and broken her bars, Her king and her princes [are] among the nations, There is no law, also her prophets Have not found vision from YHWH.

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.

Sit on the earth—[the] elderly of Zion’s daughter keep silent, They have caused dust to go up on their head, They have girded on sackcloth, The virgins of Jerusalem have Put their head down to the earth.

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 have been consumed by tears, My bowels have been troubled, My liver has been poured out to the earth, For the breach of the daughter of my people; In infant and suckling being feeble, In the broad places of the city,

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 [are] grain and wine?” In their becoming feeble as a pierced one In the broad places of the city, In their soul pouring itself out into the bosom 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?

What do I testify [to] you, what do I liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What do I equal to you, and I comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For great as a sea [is] your breach, Who gives healing to 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.

Your prophets have seen for you a false and insipid thing, And have not revealed concerning your iniquity, To return your captivity, And they see for you false burdens and causes of expulsion.

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?”

Everyone passing by the way clapped hands at you, They have hissed—and they shake the head At the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city of which they said: The perfection of beauty, a joy to all the land?”

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!”

Opened against you their mouth have all your enemies, They have hissed, indeed, they gnash the teeth, They have said: “We have swallowed [her] up, Surely this [is] the day that we looked for, We have found—we have seen.”

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.

YHWH has done that which He devised, He has fulfilled His saying That He commanded from the days of old, He has broken down and has not pitied, And causes an enemy to rejoice over you, He lifted up 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.

Their heart has cried to the Lord; O wall of the daughter of Zion, Cause to go down tears as a stream daily and nightly, do not give rest to yourself, Do not let the daughter of your eye stand 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, cry aloud in the night, At the beginning of the watches. Pour out your heart as water, Before the face of the Lord, Lift up to Him your hands, for the soul of your infants, Who are feeble with hunger at the head of all out-places.

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 YHWH, and look attentively, To whom You have acted thus, Do women eat their fruit, infants of a handbreadth? Slain in the sanctuary of the Lord are priest and 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.

Lain on the earth [in] out-places have young and old, My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword, You have slain in a day of Your anger, You have slaughtered—You have 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.

You call as [at] a day of appointment, My fears from all around, And there has not been in the day of the anger of YHWH, An escaped and remaining one, They whom I stretched out and nourished, My enemy has consumed!