< Lamentations 2 >
1 [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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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!