Lamentations 2

The Lord like an enemy

1How the Lord has covered daughter Zion
with the cloud of his anger!
He hurled Israel's splendor
from heaven to earth.
On the day of his anger
he did not remember his footstool. 2The Lord swallowed up without pity
all Jacob's dwellings.
In his fury he tore down
daughter Judah's fortresses.
He brought them to the ground,
profaning the kingdom and its rulers. 3In burning anger he cut off
every horn of Israel.
He drew back his right hand
in the face of the enemy.
He burned in Jacob like a flaming fire,
devouring all around. 4He drew his bow like an enemy,
his right hand poised like a foe.
He killed all that delighted the eye.
In daughter Zion's tent
he poured out his wrath like fire. 5The Lord has become like an enemy.
He swallowed up Israel,
swallowed all her palaces,
destroyed her fortresses.
He multiplied mourning and moaning
in daughter Judah. 6He tore away his shelter as if it were a garden;
he destroyed his appointed meeting place.
The LORD made feast and Sabbath forgotten in Zion;
in his fierce anger he spurned king and priest. 7The Lord rejected his altar,
repudiated his sanctuary.
He handed the walls of her palaces
over to the enemy.
They raised their voices in the LORD's house
as on a feast day. 8The LORD planned to destroy
daughter Zion's wall.
He stretched out a measuring line
and did not draw back his destroying hand.
He made rampart and wall mourn;
together they languished. 9Her gates sank into the ground;
he destroyed and broke their bars.
Her king and officials are among the nations.
There is no instruction;
even her prophets find
no vision from the LORD.

Tears and hunger

10Daughter Zion's elders sit on the ground in silence.
They throw dust on their heads
and put on sackcloth.
Jerusalem's virgins
bow their heads to the ground. 11My eyes are spent with tears;
my insides churn.
My liver is poured out on the ground
because my people are shattered,
because children and nursing infants faint
in the town's squares. 12They ask their mothers,
“Where are grain and wine?”
They faint like the wounded
in the city squares,
their lives pouring away
in their mothers' arms. 13What can I say for you? To what can I compare you,
daughter Jerusalem?
What can I set beside you to comfort you,
virgin daughter Zion?
Your breach is as vast as the sea.
Who can heal you? 14Your prophets saw empty and hollow visions for you.
They did not expose your guilt
to restore your fortunes.
They saw for you empty oracles
that led you astray. 15All who pass by clap their hands at you;
they hiss and shake their heads
at daughter Jerusalem:
“Is this the city they called
perfect in beauty,
the joy of the whole earth?” 16All your enemies open their mouths against you;
they hiss and grind their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her!
This is the day we waited for.
We have reached it; we have seen it!” 17The LORD has done what he planned,
fulfilled the word he commanded long ago.
He tore down without pity;
he let the enemy rejoice over you
and raised the horn of your foes.

Pour out your heart

18Their hearts cry out to the Lord.
Wall of daughter Zion,
let tears flow like a torrent day and night.
Give yourself no rest;
let the pupil of your eye never cease. 19Rise, cry out in the night,
at the beginning of each watch.
Pour out your heart like water
before the Lord.
Lift your hands to him for your children's lives;
they faint from hunger at every street corner. 20“Look, LORD, and see:
whom have you treated this way?
Should women eat their own offspring,
the children they have nurtured?
Should priest and prophet be killed
in the Lord's sanctuary? 21Young and old lie on the ground in the streets.
My virgins and young men have fallen by the sword.
You killed them on the day of your anger;
you slaughtered without pity. 22You summoned my terrors from every side
as though to a feast day.
On the day of the LORD's anger
there was no fugitive or survivor.
Those I nurtured and raised,
my enemy consumed.”