Lamentations 2

1 How hath the Lord ^acovered the daughter of Zion with a ^bcloud in his anger, and cast^c down from heaven unto the earth the beauty^d of Israel, and remembered not his ¹footstool² in the day of his anger!

2 The Lord ^ehath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath ^gnot pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to³ the ground: he ^hhath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger ⁱall the horn of Israel: he ^jhath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

4 He ^khath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye⁴ in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he ^lpoured out his fury like fire.

5 The Lord was as an enemy; he hath ⁿswallowed 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.

6 And he hath violently taken away⁵ his ⁶tabernacle,⁷ as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath^o caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised, in the indignation of his anger, ^pthe king and the priest.

7 The^q Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath ^rabhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up⁸ into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; ⁹they have made a noise¹ in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.

8 The LORD ^shath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; he hath stretched out a ²line,³ he hath not withdrawn his hand from ⁴destroying:⁵ therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament;⁶ they languished together.

9 Her^t gates are sunk into the ground;⁷ he hath destroyed and broken her bars: ^uher king and her princes are among the Gentiles: ^vthe law is no more;⁸ her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.

10 The elders of the daughter of Zion ^xsit 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.⁹

11 Mine^y eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my ^zliver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon¹ in the streets of the city.

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^a 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 ^bthy breach is great like the sea;³ who can heal thee?

14 Thy ^cprophets 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 ^dfalse burdens, and causes of banishment.⁴

15 All that pass by⁵ clap^e their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call ^gthe perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?

16 All thine enemies ^hhave opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, ⁱWe have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised;^j he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: ^khe hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and ^lhe hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.⁶

18 Theirⁿ heart cried unto the Lord, ^oO wall of the daughter of Zion, ^plet tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye⁷ cease.

19 Arise,^q cry out in the night; in the beginning of the ^rwatches ^spour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, ^tthat faint for hunger in the top of every street.

20 ¶ Behold, O LORD, and consider ^uto whom thou hast done this. Shall the women ^veat their fruit,⁸ and children ⁹of a span[≈ 23 cm · 9 in] long?¹ shall^x the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 The ^yyoung 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.

22 Thou hast called, as in a solemn day, my terrors^z round about; so that in the day of the LORD's anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up ^ahath mine enemy consumed.