1How the LORD has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel, and he has not remembered the footstool of his feet on the day of his anger.2The LORD has swallowed up and has not spared all the habitations of Jacob; he has overthrown in his fury the fortifications of the daughter of Judah; he has brought the kingdom and its rulers down to the ground and has profaned them.3He has cut off in the burning of his anger every horn of Israel; he has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he has burned against Jacob like a consuming flame of fire.4He has bent his bow like an enemy; his right hand has stood ready like an adversary, and he has slain every desirable thing in the tent of the daughter of Zion; he has poured out his wrath like fire.5The LORD has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all her palaces; he has ruined his strongholds and has increased mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.6He has treated his booth violently as if it were a garden; he has ruined his appointed feast; the LORD has caused appointed feast and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and in the indignation of his anger he has rejected king and priest.7The LORD has rejected his altar; he has disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy; they have raised their voice in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.8The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; he has stretched out the line and has not withdrawn his hand from devouring; he has made both rampart and wall mourn together; they have grown weak.9Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars; her king and her princes are among the nations; there is no law, and her prophets have found no vision from the LORD.10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have put dust on their heads and have girded themselves with sackcloth; the virgins of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.11My eyes are spent with tears; my inward parts are in turmoil; my liver is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, while infants and nursing children faint in the streets of the town.12They say to their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" as they faint like the slain in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out into the embrace of their mothers.13What can I say in witness concerning you? To what can I liken you, O daughter Jerusalem; to what can I compare you that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your wound is as great as the sea; who can heal you?14Your prophets have seen false and worthless things for you and have not exposed your iniquity so as to restore your fortunes; instead they have seen for you false oracles and misleading words.15All who pass along the way have clapped their hands at you; they have hissed and wagged their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem; "Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?"16All your enemies have opened their mouths against you; they have hissed and gnashed their teeth; they have said, "We have swallowed her up; this is the very day we have waited for; we have found it; we have seen it."17The LORD has carried out what he planned; he has fulfilled his word that he decreed long ago; he has overthrown without pity, and he has let the enemy rejoice over you; he has exalted the horn of your foes.18Their heart cries out to the LORD, O wall of the daughter of Zion: let tears flow down like a torrent day and night; give yourself no relief; let not the daughter of your eye be silent.19Arise, cry out in the night at the beginning of the watches; pour out your heart like water before the LORD; lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children who faint with hunger at the head of every street.20Look, O LORD, and consider: to whom have you done this? Shall women eat their own offspring, the children they have nursed, or shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the LORD?21Young and old lie in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered without pity.22You have summoned terrors against me from all sides as on a day of festival, and on the day of the LORD's anger there was neither survivor nor fugitive whom I had reared and brought up; my enemy has destroyed them all.