Lamentations 2

1How has the Lord shrouded the daughter of Zion in a cloud amid his anger! He has hurled Israel's splendor from heaven to earth and not remembered his footstool on the day of his anger.

2The Lord devoured all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. In his wrath he demolished the fortresses of Judah's daughter, bringing them to the ground; he defiled the kingdom and its princes.

3He has cut off all Israel's might in fierce anger. He has withdrawn his right hand from before the enemy. Like a flaming fire he has burned through Jacob, consuming all around.

4He drew his bow like a foe, positioned his right hand like an adversary, killed all the eye's delights in the tent of daughter Zion, and poured out his burning anger like fire.

5The Lord has become like an enemy, devouring Israel, devouring all her palaces, ruining his fortresses, and multiplying grief and lament in the daughter of Judah.

6He violated his tabernacle like a garden, destroyed his places of assembly. Yahweh caused sacred assemblies and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and spurned the king and the priest in the fury of his anger.

7The Lord has spurned his altar, loathed his sanctuary; he has delivered the walls of her palaces into the enemy's hand. They have raised a shout in the house of Yahweh as on the day of a festival.

8Yahweh planned to ruin the wall of daughter Zion; he stretched the line, did not turn back his hand from devouring, caused the rampart and wall to mourn together, and they languished.

9Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; no law remains, nor do even her prophets find vision from Yahweh.

10The elders of Daughter Zion sit silently on the ground; they have thrown dust upon their heads and girded themselves with sackcloth; Jerusalem's virgins bow their heads to the earth.

11My eyes are consumed with tears, my bowels churn, my liver is poured out on the earth because of the shattering of the daughter of my people, as babes and sucklings faint in the streets of the city.

12They say to their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" as they faint like the slain in the streets of the city, while their lives pour out into their mothers' bosoms.

13What shall I testify for you? What shall I liken you to, daughter Jerusalem? What shall I equal you with to comfort you, virgin daughter Zion? For your ruin is vast like the sea—who can heal you?

14Your prophets have seen vanity and folly for you; they have not exposed your iniquity to reverse your captivity, but have seen false oracles and delusions for you.

15All who pass by the road clap their hands at you; they hiss and shake their heads over the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, "Is this the city that they call perfection of beauty, joy of the whole earth?"

16All your enemies gape at you, mouths agape; they hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have devoured her. Surely this is the day we waited for; we have found it, we have seen it.”

17Yahweh has done what he devised; he has completed his word that he commanded in ancient days. He has broken down without sparing, made your enemy rejoice over you, and raised the horn of your adversaries.

18Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears pour down like a river day and night; allow yourself no relief; let not the apple of your eye cease.

19Arise, cry out in the night at the start of the watches; pour out your heart like water before the Lord's face. Lift up your hands to him for your infants' lives, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.

20Look, Yahweh, and consider to whom you have dealt thus. Shall women devour their offspring, the suckling infants? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21Young and old lay on the ground in the streets; my maidens and my young men fell by the sword. You slew them on the day of your anger; you slaughtered without pity.

22You called my terrors from every side as on a festival day, and there was no fugitive or survivor in the day of Yahweh's anger—none of those I nursed and raised—for my enemy destroyed them.