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.

How hath the Lord in his anger covered with a cloud the daughter of Zion! He hath cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel, And hath 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.

Lord hath swallowed up without pity all the habitations of Jacob; He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He hath brought down to the ground, he hath profaned 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3 In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy.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 cut off, in his fierce anger, every horn of Israel; He hath drawn back his right hand from the face of the enemy, And hath burned 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 stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that was pleasant to the eye; Upon the tent of the daughter of Zion he poured out his fury 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.

The Lord is become as an enemy; he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all his palaces; he hath destroyed his strongholds; And hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

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.

He hath violently torn away his hedge, like the hedge of a garden; he hath destroyed his place of congregation; Jehovah hath caused the solemn feast and the sabbath to be forgotten in Zion; He hath despised, in his fierce anger, the king and the 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 abhorred his holy place; He hath given up into the hands of the enemy the walls of Zion's palaces; They have lifted up the voice in the house of Jehovah, as in the 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.

Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He hath made the rampart and the wall to lament; They languish together.

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.

Her gates are sunk into the earth; he hath destroyed and broken her bars; Her king and her princes are among the nations; The law is no more; Her prophets also find no vision from Jehovah.

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 in silence; They have cast dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth; The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads 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.

Mine eyes do fail with tears; my bowels boil; My liver is poured out upon the ground on account of the destruction of the daughter of my people; For the children and sucklings faint in the streets 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.

They say to their mothers, “Where is corn and wine?” While they faint, as one wounded, in the streets of the city; While their life is poured out into their mother's bosom.

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?

How shall I address thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? With what shall I compare thee, so as to comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? Surely thy breach is wide, like the sea; who can heal 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 declare to thee that which is vain and false; They lay not open to thee thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity; They pronounce to 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 that pass by clap their hands at thee; They hiss, and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem. “Is this the city that men called the perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole 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 thine enemies open their mouths against thee; They hiss and gnash the teeth; They say: “We have swallowed her up; Yea, this is the day that we looked 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.

Jehovah hath accomplished that which he had devised; He hath fulfilled his word, which he had commanded in the days of old; He hath thrown down and hath not pitied; He hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath exalted the horn of thine 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 out to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let thy tears run down like a river day and night! Give thyself no rest! let not the apple of thine eye 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.

Arise, cry aloud in the night at the beginning of the watches! Pour out thy heart like water before the face of Jehovah! Lift up thy hands to him for the life of thy young children, That faint for hunger at the head 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?

“Behold, O Jehovah, and consider! With whom hast thou dealt thus? Shall women eat the fruit of the womb, children borne in the arms? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the holy place 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.

“The boy and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; Thou hast killed, and hast shown no mercy.

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 on a festal day, my terrors around me; There was not one, in the day of Jehovah's anger, that escaped or was left; Those whom I have borne in my arms and brought up hath my enemy consumed.”