Lamentations 2:5-22

The Lord has become like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all its palaces; He has destroyed its strongholds And multiplied in the Daughter of Judah Mourning and lamentation (expressions of grief). And He has violently broken down His temple like a [fragile] garden hedge; He has destroyed His appointed meeting place. The LORD has caused the appointed feast and Sabbath To be forgotten in Zion And has despised and rejected the king and the priest In the indignation of His anger. The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary. He has given into the hand of the enemy The walls of her palaces; They have made a noise in the house of the LORD As on a day of an appointed feast. The LORD determined to lay in ruins The [city] wall of the Daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line, He has not stopped His hand from destroying. He has caused the rampart and the wall to lament (mourn in grief); They have languished together. Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are [exiled] among the nations; The law is no more. Also, her prophets no longer find Vision from the LORD. The elders of the Daughter of Zion Sit on the ground keeping silent; They have thrown dust on their heads, They have covered themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem Have bowed their heads to the ground. My eyes fail because of tears [mourns Jeremiah], My spirit is deeply disturbed; My heart is poured out on the earth [in grief] Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Jerusalem], When little ones and infants faint In the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” As they faint like a wounded man In the streets of the city, As their life [slips away and] is poured out In their mothers’ arms. How shall I console you? To what shall I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? With what shall I compare you, so that I may comfort you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your ruin is as vast as the sea; Who can heal you? [Lam 1:12; Dan 9:12] Your prophets have seen (imagined) for you False and foolish visions; And they have not exposed your wickedness To restore you from captivity [by teaching you to repent], But they have seen (imagined) and declared to you false and misleading oracles. All who pass along the way Clap their hands in derision at you; They scoff and shake their heads At the Daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that was called ‘The perfection of beauty, The joy of all the earth’?” All your enemies Have opened their mouths wide against you; They [scornfully] hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! Certainly this is the day for which we waited; We have reached it, we have seen it!” The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His word Which He commanded from days of old. He has demolished without sparing, And He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; He has exalted the power of your enemies. [Lev 26:14-39; Deut 28:15-68] Their hearts cried out to the Lord. “O wall of the Daughter of Zion, Let your tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no relief, Let your eyes have no rest. “Arise, cry aloud in the night, At the beginning of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water Before the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to Him For the life of your little ones Who are faint from hunger At the head of every street.” [Ps 62:8] See, O LORD, and look! With whom have You dealt this way? Should women eat their offspring, The little ones who were born healthy and beautiful? Should priest and prophet be killed In the sanctuary of the Lord? The young and the old Lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men Have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of Your anger, You have slaughtered, not sparing. You [LORD] called as in the day of an appointed feast My terrors (dangers) on every side; And there was no one who escaped or survived In the day of the LORD’S anger. Those I have cared for and brought up with tenderness, My enemy annihilated them.