Lamentations
2:1 How hath the LORD covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his
anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,
and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2:2 The LORD hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not
pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the
daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath
polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
2:3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath
drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against
Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
2:4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an
adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle
of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
2:5 The LORD was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed
up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath
increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
2:6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a
garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath
caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath
despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
2:7 The LORD hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he
hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they
have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn
feast.
2:8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he
hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from
destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they
languished together.
2:9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her
bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no
more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.
2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep
silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded
themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their
heads to the ground.
2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured
upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
2:12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as
the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out
into their mothers' bosom.
2:13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to
thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may
comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like
the sea: who can heal thee?
2:14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have
not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen
for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
2:15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head
at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The
perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
2:16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and
gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is
the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
2:17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word
that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath
not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath
set up the horn of thine adversaries.
2:18 Their heart cried unto the LORD, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let
tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not
the apple of thine eye cease.
2:19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out
thine heart like water before the face of the LORD: lift up thy hands
toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in
the top of every street.
2:20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the
women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and
the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
2:21 The young and the old 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 not pitied.
2:22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in
the day of the LORD's anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have
swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
