Lamentations 2:8-22 ▼

8 YHWH has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line; He has not turned back His hand from destroying; the rampart and wall He has caused to lament, and together they have languished.

9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars; her king and her princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets cannot find vision from YHWH.

10 They sit on the ground and are silent—the elders of the daughter of Zion; they have thrown up dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth; they have bowed their heads to the ground, the virgins of Jerusalem.

11 My eyes end in tears, my bowels are troubled; my liver is poured to the ground over the destruction of the daughter of my people, at the fainting of the infants and sucklings in the streets of the city!

12 To their mothers they say, “Where is the grain and wine?” In their becoming feeble like a wounded one in the streets of the city, in the pouring out their soul into the bosom of their mothers.

13 What can I say about you; to what shall I liken you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you that I might comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your brokenness is as great as the sea—who can bring healing to you?

14 Your prophets have seen for you emptiness and foolish things, and they have not uncovered about your iniquity, to turn back your captivity, and they have seen for you burdens of emptiness and enticements.

15 They clap the hands at you all those passing by on the way; they hiss and shake their heads over the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that they called the fullness of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”

16 They have opened their mouth against you—all your enemies; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say: “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day we have awaited—we have found it, we have seen!”

17 YHWH has done what He planned, and has fulfilled His word, which He commanded from days before; He has overthrown, and He has not spared; the enemy He has made glad over you, and He has raised high the horn of your adversaries.

18 Their heart has cried out to the Lord! O wall of the daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a torrent day and night; do not give ceasing to yourself, do not give rest to the daughter of your eye!

19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like waters before the face of the Lord! Lift up toward Him your hands over the soul of your infants, those weakened by hunger in the head of every street!

20 See, O YHWH, and consider! To whom have You dealt this way? Shall women eat their own fruit, the infants of the tender care? Shall he be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord—priest and prophet?

21 They lie on the ground in the streets young and old; my maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword; You have slain them in the day of Your anger! You have slaughtered and not spared!

22 You have called, as on the day of an appointed feast, my terrors from around; he did not escape on the day of the anger of YHWH—escapee or survivor! Those whom I have held and brought up, my enemy has consumed them.