Lamentations 2:1-12 ▼

1 How hath the Lord covered with a cloud The daughter of Zion in His anger! He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth The beauty of Israel, And hath not remembered His footstool In the day of His anger.

2 The Lord hath swallowed up unsparingly All the habitations of Jacob; He hath thrown down in His wrath The strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He hath brought them down to the ground; He hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.

3 He hath cut off in fierce anger All the horn of Israel; He hath drawn back His right hand From before the enemy; And He hath burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, Which devoureth round about.

4 He hath bent His bow like an enemy, Standing with His right hand as an adversary, And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye; In the tent of the daughter of Zion He hath poured out His fury like fire.

5 The Lord is become as an enemy, He hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed his strongholds; And He hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning.

6 And He hath stripped His tabernacle, as if it were a garden, He hath destroyed His place of assembly; The LORD hath caused to be forgotten in Zion Appointed season and sabbath, And hath rejected in the indignation of His anger The king and the priest.

7 The Lord hath cast off His altar, He hath abhorred His sanctuary, He hath 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 assembly.

8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy The wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath stretched out the line, He hath not withdrawn His hand from destroying; But He hath made the rampart and wall to mourn, They languish together.

9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; He hath destroyed and broken her bars; Her king and her princes are among the nations, Instruction is no more; Yea, her prophets find No vision from the LORD.

10 They sit upon the ground, and keep silence, The elders of the daughter of Zion; 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.

11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, Mine inwards burn, My liver is poured upon the earth, For the breach of the daughter of my people; Because the young children and the sucklings swoon In the broad places of the city.

12 They say to their mothers: 'Where is corn and wine?' When they swoon as the wounded In the broad places of the city, When their soul is poured out Into their mothers' bosom.