Lamentations 2:1-22
2 * How the Lord in his anger clouds Sion’s daughter in,has thrown the magnificence of Israel from sky to earth,and not remembered his footstool on his day of anger!
2 * The Lord has unsparingly swept off all Jacob’s meadows,has in his wrath demolished the fortifications of the daughter of Judah,has laid in the dust, desecrated, a kingdom and its generals.
3 In his anger he has chopped off every horn of Israel’s, turned his right hand backward before an enemy,and blazed in Jacob like a flaming fire devouring on all sides.
4 * He has bent his bow like an enemy, brought up his right hand like a foe,and killed all that were a delight to the eye;on the tent of the daughter of Sion he has poured his choler like fire.
5 The Lord has been like an enemy, has swept Israel off,swept off all his palaces, ruined his fortresses,and brought into the daughter of Judah much of grievance and grieving,
6 And he has ruthlessly dismantled her lodge like a shack in a garden,has ruined her meeting-place,Jehovah has caused meeting-day and sabbath to be forgotten in Sion,and in his angry hostility has contemned king and priest.
7 The Lord has repudiated his altar, ignored his sanctuary,given up to an enemy the walls of her palaces;they made a noise in Jehovah’s house that sounded like an annual feast.
8 Jehovah planned to wreck the walls of the daughter of Sion;he stretched a line, did not turn his hand back from sweeping it down,and let bulwark and wall mourn, forlorn together.
9 * Her gates have sunk into the earth; he has destroyed and shattered her bars;her king and generals are among the nations; there are no rulings on religion;her prophets too have not found any vision from Jehovah.
10 The elders of the daughter of Sion sit silent on the ground,have put earth over their heads, have belted on sackcloths;the maidens of Jerusalem have put their heads down on the ground.
11 * My eyes are used up in tears, my vitals are boiling,my heart runs out of me for the broken bones of the daughter of my people,when little boy and baby collapse in town squares;
12 * They say to their mothers “Where is some grain and wine?”while they faint away in city squares like a man mortally wounded,while their life runs out in their mothers’ laps.
13 What shall I quote to you, what shall I compare you to, daughter Jerusalem?what shall I parallel to you to comfort you, maiden daughter of Sion?for your mauling is great as the sea; who shall heal you?
14 *** Your prophets have furnished you futile and unctuous visions, have not spoken out about your guilt to bring you backbut have given you visions that are delusion, futility, and exile.
15 All passersby struck their hands together over you,whistled and shook their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem:“Is this the city that was spoken of as perfect in beauty, a joy to all the earth?”
16 * All your enemies opened their mouths wide at you,whistled and ground their teeth, said “We have made a clean sweep;this is just the day we were hoping for; it has turned up, we see the sight.”
17 Jehovah has done what he designed, finished up his dictatethat he ordained from olden days, demolished unsparingly, gladdened your enemies over you, given your foes a high horn.
18 *** Their hearts cried out to the Lord hotly; daughter of Sion,pour down your tears like a flooded brook day and night,take no anodyne, let your eyeball never be still.
19 * Stand up and clamor in the night, at each new watch,pour out your hearts in Jehovah’s face like water,raise your hands to him for the lives of your boys and girlswho have fainted away with hunger at the tops of all the streets.
20 See, Jehovah! look whom you have handled so!or should women eat their own fruit, their petted children?or should priest and prophet be killed in the Lord’s sanctuary?
21 Boy and old man are lying on the ground in the streets;my maidens and young men have fallen by the sword;on your day of anger you killed, slaughtered, had no mercy.
22 You are calling my terrors on every side as if for the day of an annual feast,and there were none on the day of Jehovah’s anger that escaped or survived.Those that I had petted and brought up my enemy has swept away.
Footnotes
^ 2:1 Var. How Jehovah in
^ 2:2 Var. Jehovah has unsparingly
^ 2: 4 (brought up his right hand like a foe) Susp.
^ 2:9 (shattered) Susp.
^ 2:11 Lit. my liver gushes out on the ground for the
^ 2:12 Lit. runs out into
^ 2:14 Lit. have visioned for you futility and whitewash
^ 2:14 (bring you back) Or restore you
^ 2:14 Codd. have visioned for you bodings of futility and exile
^ 2:16 (it has turned up) Lit. we have found
^ 2:18 Codd. to the Lord; wall of the daughter Conj. Cry out . . . to the Lord, maiden daughter with some uncertain word between out and to
^ 2:18 (anodyne) Unc.
^ 2:18 Lit. let the pupil of your eye not
^ 2:19 Conj. that the words after girls do not belong here
