Lamentations 2

Revised Geneva Translation

2 How the LORD has darkened the daughter of Zion in His wrath, has cast down the beauty of Israel from Heaven to the Earth, and not remembered His footstool on the day of His wrath!

² The LORD has destroyed all the habitations of Jacob, and not spared. He has thrown down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah in His wrath. He has cast them down to the ground. He has polluted the kingdom and its princes.

³ In His fierce wrath He has cut off all the horn of Israel. He has drawn back His right Hand from before the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flame of fire, which devours all around.

⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy. His right Hand was stretched up, as an adversary, and killed all that was pleasant to the eye in the Tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. He poured out His wrath like fire.

⁵ The LORD was like an enemy. He has devoured Israel, consumed all its palaces. He has destroyed its strongholds and has increased lamentation and mourning in the daughter of Judah.

⁶ For He has destroyed His Tabernacle. Like a garden, He has destroyed His Congregation. The LORD has caused the Feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and has spurned, in the indignation of His wrath, the king and the priest.

⁷ The LORD has forsaken His Altar. He has abhorred His Sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in the House of the LORD, as on the day of a solemn Feast.

⁸ The LORD has determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He stretched out a line. He has not withdrawn His Hand from destroying. Therefore, He caused the rampart and the wall to lament. They were destroyed together.

⁹ Her gates have sunk to the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles. The Law is no more, nor can her Prophets receive vision from the LORD.

¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silent. They have thrown dust upon their heads. They have girded themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

¹¹ My eyes fail with tears. My bowels swell. My liver is poured upon the earth for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and infants swoon in the streets of the city.

¹² They have said to their mothers, “Where is bread and drink?” when they swooned like the wounded in the streets of the city, when they gave up the ghost in their mother’s bosom.

¹³ How shall I witness to you? To what thing shall I compare you, O daughter Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, so that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter Zion? For your breach is great, like the sea. Who can heal you?

¹⁴ Your prophets have seen empty and foolish things for you. And they have not discovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity, but have seen false prophecies for you, and causes of banishment.

¹⁵ All who pass by the way, clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head upon the daughter Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that is called, ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole Earth?’”

¹⁶ All your enemies have opened their mouth against you. They hiss and gnash the teeth, saying, “Let us devour it! Certainly, this is the day that we looked for! We have found and seen it!”

¹⁷ The LORD has done that which He had purposed. He has fulfilled His Word that He had determined from days of old. He has thrown down, and not spared. He has caused your enemy to rejoice over you, and set up the horn of your adversaries.

¹⁸ Their heart cried to the LORD, “O wall of the daughter Zion! Let tears run down like a river, day and night! Take no rest for yourself or let the apple of your eye cease!

¹⁹ “Arise! Cry in the night! In the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the LORD. Lift up your hands toward Him for the life of your young children who faint for hunger in the corners of all the streets.”

²⁰ Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, nursing children? Shall the Priest and the Prophet be killed in the Sanctuary of the LORD?

²¹ 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 on the day of Your wrath. You have killed, and not spared.

²² You have called my terrors, all around, as on a Feast Day; so that on the day of the LORD’s wrath, no one escaped or remained. Those whom I have nourished and brought up my enemy has consumed.