Lamentations 2

1How the Lord in his anger has covered Daughter Zion with a cloud! He has hurled the splendor of Israel down from heaven to earth; in the day of his anger he gave no thought to the footstool of his feet.

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

3In blazing anger he has cut down all the strength of Israel; he has pulled back his right hand in the face of the enemy; he has blazed through Jacob like a flaming fire that devours everything around it.

4He has strung his bow like an enemy, his right hand poised like a foe; he has killed everyone who was a delight to see; on the tent of Daughter Zion he has poured out his rage like fire.

5The Lord has become like an enemy: he has swallowed up Israel, swallowed up all its palaces, and laid its strongholds in ruins; he has heaped up mourning and moaning in Daughter Judah.

6He has torn down his booth as one strips a garden; he has ruined his place of meeting; the LORD has wiped out the memory of festival and Sabbath in Zion, and in his fierce anger he has spurned both king and priest.

7The Lord has cast off his altar and disowned his sanctuary; he has handed the walls of her palaces over to the enemy; they raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on a festival day.

8The LORD resolved to tear down the wall of Daughter Zion; he stretched out the measuring line and did not hold back his hand from destroying; he made rampart and wall lament; together they lie in ruins.

9Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has wrecked and shattered her bars. Her king and her officials are among the nations; instruction is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD.

10The elders of Daughter Zion sit on the ground without a word; they have thrown dust on their heads and wrapped themselves in sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem bow their heads low to the earth.

11My eyes are worn out with weeping, my stomach is in turmoil; my heart is poured out on the ground because my dear people are shattered, as little children and babies faint in the city squares.

12They keep asking their mothers, “Where is there grain and wine?” as they collapse like the wounded in the city’s open squares, while their life drains away in their mothers’ arms.

13What witness can I bring for you? What can I liken to you, Daughter Jerusalem? What can I set beside you to comfort you, Virgin Daughter Zion? For the breach in you is as wide as the sea; who could heal you?

14The visions your prophets saw for you were empty and worthless; they did not lay bare your guilt to turn back your captivity; the oracles they saw for you were hollow and misleading.

15All who travel the road clap their hands at you; they hiss in scorn and shake their heads at Daughter Jerusalem: “Is this the city people called ‘perfect in beauty, the delight of the whole earth’?”

16All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they hiss and grind their teeth and say, “We have swallowed her up! It has come at last, the day we hoped for; we have found it, we have seen it with our own eyes!”

17The LORD has done what he purposed; he has fulfilled his word, which he decreed long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has let the enemy gloat over you and raised up the strength of your foes.

18Their heart cries out to the Lord. Wall of Daughter Zion, pour down tears like a torrent by day and by night! Give yourself no relief; do not let your eyes rest.

19Get up and cry aloud in the night, as each watch of the night begins; empty out your heart like water before the Lord’s face. Raise your hands to him for the lives of your little ones, who grow faint from hunger at the corner of every street.

20Look, LORD, and take note: whom have you ever dealt with like this? Must women eat their own offspring, the little ones they cared for? Must priest and prophet be slain in the Lord’s sanctuary?

21Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword. In the day of your anger you struck them down; you butchered them and did not spare.

22As if calling a festival crowd, you summoned terrors against me from every side; on the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped and no one survived; the children I nursed and brought up, my enemy has wiped out.