Old Testament · Prophets

Lamentations chapter 2

How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion in the ! He hurled Israel’s beauty down from the sky to the ground. He didn’t even remember his on the day his anger erupted.The Lord without mercy every dwelling place of Jacob. In his fury he tore down the fortresses of the daughter of Judah. He brought them crashing to the ground, dishonoring the kingdom and its leaders.In blazing anger he cut off every source of Israel’s strength. He pulled back his just as the enemy attacked. He burned through Jacob like a wildfire that consumes everything it touches.He , his right hand poised like an attacker. He killed everyone precious to look at in the tent of the daughter of Zion. He poured out his fury like fire.The Lord — he swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all her palaces, destroyed her fortresses. He multiplied mourning and grief in the daughter of Judah.He stripped his own garden like a shed torn down; he destroyed his own . Yahweh erased from memory in Zion both festival and , and in his blazing anger he rejected king and priest alike.The Lord rejected his altar, abandoned . He handed the walls of her palaces over to the enemy. They raised a in Yahweh’s house .Yahweh determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He stretched out the — he didn’t hold his hand back from devouring. He made rampart and wall grieve together; they wasted away as one.Her gates have sunk into the ground; he shattered and destroyed her bars. Her king and leaders are exiled among the nations— there is no from God anymore. Her prophets find no from Yahweh.The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They’ve thrown and wrapped themselves in . The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their faces to the ground.My eyes have gone blind from weeping, my stomach is in knots. My on the ground because my people are shattered— because children and infants collapse in the city streets.They cry to their mothers, “Where is the bread? Where is the wine?” as they collapse like wounded soldiers in the city streets, as their in their mothers’ arms.What can I say for you? What can I compare you to, daughter of Jerusalem? What can I set alongside you to comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? Your wound is as — who could ever heal you?Your prophets gave you visions that were and lies. They never exposed your to turn your fate around. The messages they gave you were empty and misleading.Everyone passing by on the road at you. They hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city they called ‘the , the joy of the whole earth’?”All your enemies open their mouths wide against you. They hiss and . They say, “We have swallowed her up! This is the day we were waiting for— we have lived to see it!”Yahweh has done . He carried out the word he commanded long ago. He tore down without mercy. He let the enemy celebrate over you; he raised the of your attackers.Their heart cried out to the Lord. Wall of the daughter of Zion— let day and night. Give yourself no relief, let your eyes find no rest.Get up, cry out in the night— at the start of . before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at every street corner.“Look, Yahweh, and consider: Who have you ever treated like this? Should women , the babies they’ve cradled in their arms? Should priest and prophet be slaughtered in ?”Young and old lie together on the ground in the streets. My young women and young men have fallen by the sword. You them on the day of your anger— you butchered them without mercy.You summoned terrors against me from every side . On the no one escaped, no one survived. The ones I cradled and raised— my enemy has destroyed them all.