Lamentations 2

1How the Lord in his anger has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud! He has thrown down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

2The Lord has swallowed up without pity all the dwellings of Jacob. In his fury he has torn down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought them down to the ground. He has dishonored the kingdom and its officials.

3In fierce anger he has cut off every horn of Israel. He has drawn back his right hand in the presence of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it.

4He has bent his bow like an enemy; his right hand is set like a foe. He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye. On the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire.

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

6He has torn down his booth like a garden shelter; he has destroyed his place of meeting. Yahweh has made Zion forget festival and Sabbath, and in his fierce indignation he has spurned king and priest.

7The Lord has rejected his altar and disowned his sanctuary. He has handed over to the enemy the walls of her palaces. They have raised a shout in the house of Yahweh as on a festival day.

8Yahweh determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line; he did not hold back his hand from destroying. He made rampart and wall lament; together they waste away.

9Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars. Her king and her officials are among the nations; there is no more law, and her prophets find no vision from Yahweh.

10The 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.

11My eyes are worn out with tears; my stomach churns. My heart is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

12They say to their mothers, “Where are the grain and the wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mothers’ arms.

13What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you, so that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is as vast as the sea; who can heal you?

14Your prophets saw visions for you that were false and worthless; they did not expose your guilt to restore your fortunes. The oracles they saw for you were false and misleading.

15All who pass by clap their hands at you; 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 the whole earth?”

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

17Yahweh has done what he planned; he has carried out his word, which he decreed long ago. He has torn down without pity; he has let the enemy gloat over you and has raised up the horn of your foes.

18Their heart cried out to the Lord. Wall of the daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night! Give yourself no relief; do not let your eyes rest.

19Get up, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the night watches! Pour out your heart like water before the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at the corner of every street.

20Look, Yahweh, and consider: whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have cared for? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered them without pity.

22You summoned my terrors from every side, as if to a festival day. On the day of Yahweh’s anger no one escaped or survived. Those I cared for and raised, my enemy has destroyed.