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Lamentations

The Lord's Wrath and Zion's Destruction

2
Chapter 2
1 How has he clouded in his anger! The Lord cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel, and he did not remember the blood of his feet on the day of his anger. 2 The Lord swallowed and did not spare all the habitations of Jacob. He tore down in his wrath the strongholds of Daughter Judah. It reached the earth, profaned kingdom and its chiefs. 3 He cut off in fierce anger every horn of Israel. He turned back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned in Jacob like a flame of fire; it devoured all around. 4 He has bent his bow like an enemy; he has stood with his right hand like a foe, and he has killed all that was precious in the tent of daughter Zion. He has poured out his wrath like fire. 5 The Lord has become an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all her palaces. He has corrupted her fortresses, and he has increased mourning and groaning in Daughter Judah. 6 And he treated it violently as a garden; he destroyed his appointed feast. The LORD has forgotten in Zion appointed feast and Sabbath, and he despised in the indignation of his anger king and priest. 7 The Lord rejected his altar; he abhorred his sanctuary. He delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They gave voice in the house of the LORD as on a day of appointed time. 8 The LORD planned to destroy the wall of Daughter Zion. He stretched out a line; he did not return his hand from swallowing. And he mourned—a bulwark and wall together languished. 9 Her gates have sunk into the earth; it has perished, and her bars are broken; her king and her princes are among the nations. There is no Torah, and even her prophets have not found vision from the LORD. 10 They sat on the earth and were silent—the elders of daughter Zion. They lifted dust onto their heads; they girded themselves with sackcloths; they brought down their heads to the earth, virgin Jerusalem. 11 My eyes are finished with tears; my inward parts are inflamed; my liver is poured out on the ground because of the brokenness of the daughter of my people, because of the fainting of the infant and suckling in the broad places of the city. 12 They say to their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" as they faint in the broad streets of the City of Refuge, as their vital life force pours out to their mothers' bosom. 13 What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you, daughter Jerusalem? What shall I equal to you and console you, virgin daughter of Zion? For great like the sea is your breakage—who will heal you? 14 Your prophets saw for you emptiness and folly. They did not uncover your iniquity to restore your captivity, and they saw for you oracles of emptiness and repulsions. 15 They clap their hands at you, all who pass by on the way. They hiss and shake their heads at daughter Jerusalem: "This is the city—they say—perfection of beauty, joy of all the earth." 16 All your enemies have opened their mouths against you; they have hissed and gnashed their teeth. They said, "We have swallowed it up! Surely this is the day—we have watched for it, we have found it, we have seen it." 17 The LORD has done what he devised; he has fulfilled his word that he commanded from days of old; he has pulled down and not pitied. He has rejoiced over you, the enemy; he has raised high the horn of your oppressor. 18 Their heart cried out to the Lord, wall of Daughter Zion. Make tears flow like a stream day and night; do not give relief to yourself; do not be silent, Daughter of your eye. 19 Arise, cry out in the night at the beginning of the watches; pour out your heart like waters before the Lord. Lift your hands to him for the lives of your sucklings who faint from hunger at the head of every street. 20 See, LORD, and look! To whom have you done this? Do women eat their bullocks, infants of a handspan? Does he slay in the sanctuary the priest and prophet of the Lord? 21 They lay on the ground in the streets: boy and elder, my virgin and my young men fell by the sword. You killed in the day of your anger; you slaughtered; you did not pity. 22 You called them as on a day of appointed time, my terrors all around. And there was not on a day of the LORD's anger an escapee or survivor whom I nurtured and multiplied—my enemies, all of them.