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The Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hands of the enemy; they have raised a shout in the house of the Lord as on the day of an appointed festival.
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Her gates have sunk into the ground; their bars he has broken and destroyed. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and her prophets no longer find visions from the Lord.
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The elders of Daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have sprinkled dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
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My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
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They say to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mothers’ arms.
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What can I say for you? With what can I compare you, Daughter Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you, Virgin Daughter Zion? Your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you?
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All who pass your way clap their hands at you; they scoff and shake their heads at Daughter Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?”
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All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it.”
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Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at every street corner.
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“Look, Lord, and consider: Whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have cared for? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
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“Young and old lie together in the dust of the streets; my young men and young women have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered them without pity.
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“As you summon to a feast day, so you summoned against me terrors on every side. In the day of the Lord’s anger no one escaped or survived; those I cared for and reared my enemy has destroyed.”
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I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
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He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light;
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indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.
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He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.
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He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains.
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Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.
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Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding,
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I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long.
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He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust.
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I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.
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So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”
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I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.
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I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.
