Lamentations 2

The Lord’s Fierce Anger

1 How the Lord covered Daughter Zion with a dark cloud in His anger. He threw Israel’s beauty down from heaven to the ground. He did not remember His footstool in the day He blew up in wrath.

2 The Lord swallowed up all the places where Jacob lived and showed no mercy. In His rage He tore down the strongholds of Daughter Judah. He slammed them to the ground and dishonored the kingdom and its leaders.

3 In hot anger He chopped off all the strength of Israel. He pulled His right hand back when the enemy came through. He burned through Jacob like a fire that eats up everything around it.

4 He stood like an enemy with His bow drawn. His right hand was ready to strike. He killed everything that was pleasant to the eye. He poured out His fury like fire on the tent of Daughter Zion.

The City Destroyed

5 The Lord became like an enemy. He swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all her palaces and wiped out her strongholds. He multiplied mourning and grief for Daughter Judah.

6 He wrecked His dwelling place like it was a garden shack. He destroyed the meeting place. The LORD made Zion forget the appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He rejected both king and priest.

7 The Lord tossed aside His altar and abandoned His sanctuary. He handed over the walls of her palaces to the enemy. They shouted in the house of the LORD like it was a feast day.

8 The LORD decided to tear down the wall of Daughter Zion. He stretched out the measuring line and did not pull His hand back from destroying. He made ramparts and walls mourn, all of them wasting away together.

9 Her gates sank into the ground. He destroyed and broke her bars. Her king and leaders are among the nations. The law is no more, and her prophets do not get visions from the LORD.

Grief Without Comfort

10 The elders of Daughter Zion sit silent on the ground. They threw dust on their heads and wrapped themselves in sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem hang their heads low.

11 My eyes are worn out from crying. My insides are twisted up. My heart is poured out on the ground because my people are ruined. Babies and toddlers are passing out in the city streets.

12 They ask their mothers, “Where is the food and drink?” as they collapse like wounded people in the city squares, breathing their last breath in their mothers’ arms.

A Cry Against False Hope

13 What can I say about you, What can I compare you to, Daughter Jerusalem, What example can I use to comfort you, Daughter Zion, Your brokenness is huge like the sea. Who can heal you,

14 Your prophets saw fake visions and lies for you. They did not expose your sin to turn things around. They gave you empty prophecies that led you straight into ruin.

15 Everybody passing by claps their hands at you. They mock and shake their heads at Daughter Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city they called perfect in beauty, the joy of the whole earth?”

16 All your enemies open their mouths wide against you. They hiss and grind their teeth, saying, “We swallowed her up. This is the day we waited for. We finally see it happen.”

The Lord Has Done What He Said

17 The LORD did what He planned. He carried out the word He commanded long ago. He tore you down without mercy. He let the enemy celebrate over you and lifted up the power of your adversaries.

18 Their hearts cried out to the Lord. O wall of Daughter Zion, let your tears run like a river day and night. Do not give yourself rest. Do not let your eyes stop crying.

19 Get up and cry out in the night, at the start of the watches. Pour your heart out like water before the Lord. Lift your hands to Him for the lives of your children, who are fainting from hunger at every street corner.

Plea for God to See

20 “LORD, look and see who You have treated like this. Should women eat their own children, the babies they once held, Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?”

21 Young and old are laid out dead in the streets. My young women and young men fell by the sword. You killed them in the day of Your anger. You slaughtered them without mercy.

22 You called my terrors in from every side like it was a feast day. In the day of the LORD’s anger nobody escaped or survived. Those I carried and raised up, my enemy wiped them out.