[[Lamentations 1|<< Lamentations 1]] | [[Lamentations|Lamentations]] | [[Lamentations 3|Lamentations 3 >>]] ### Lamentations 2 1 HOW has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, _and_ cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! ^1 2 The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied: he has thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought _them_ down to the ground: he has polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof. ^2 3 He has cut off in _his_ fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, _which_ devours round about. ^3 4 He has bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all _that_ _were_ pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire. ^4 5 The Lord was as an enemy: he has swallowed up Israel, he has swallowed up all her palaces: he has destroyed his strong holds, and has increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. ^5 6 And he has violently taken away his tabernacle, as _if_ _it_ _were_ _of_ a garden: he has destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD has caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and has despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. ^6 7 The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary, he has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast. ^7 8 The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he has stretched out a line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. ^8 9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes _are_ among the Gentiles: the law _is_ no _more;_ her prophets also find no vision from the LORD. ^9 10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit 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. ^10 11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. ^11 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. ^12 13 What 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 thy breach _is_ great like the sea: who can heal thee? ^13 14 Thy prophets 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 false burdens and causes of banishment. ^14 15 All that pass by clap _their_ hands at thee; they hiss and shake their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, _saying_, _Is_ this the city that _men_ call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? ^15 16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed _her_ up: certainly this _is_ the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen _it_. ^16 17 The LORD has done _that_ which he had devised; he has fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he has thrown down, and has not pitied: and he has caused _thine_ enemy to rejoice over thee, he has set up the horn of thine adversaries. ^17 18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease. ^18 19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street. ^19 20 ¶ Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, _and_ children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? ^20 21 The young 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. ^21 22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD's anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up has mine enemy consumed. ^22