Lam 2 | Noyes | STEP | How hath the Lord in his anger covered with a cloud the daughter of Zion! He hath cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel, And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

‏ Lamentations 2

1 How hath the Lord in his anger covered with a cloud the daughter of Zion! He hath cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel, And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. 2 Lord hath swallowed up without pity all the habitations of Jacob; He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He hath brought down to the ground, he hath profaned the kingdom and its princes. 3 He hath cut off, in his fierce anger, every horn of Israel; He hath drawn back his right hand from the face of the enemy, And hath burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about. 4 He bent his bow like an enemy; He stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that was pleasant to the eye; Upon the tent of the daughter of Zion he poured out his fury like fire. 5 The Lord is become as an enemy; he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all his palaces; he hath destroyed his strongholds; And hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. 6 He hath violently torn away his hedge, like the hedge of a garden; he hath destroyed his place of congregation; Jehovah hath caused the solemn feast and the sabbath to be forgotten in Zion; He hath despised, in his fierce anger, the king and the priest. 7 The Lord hath cast off his altar; he hath abhorred his holy place; He hath given up into the hands of the enemy the walls of Zion’s palaces; They have lifted up the voice in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn feast. 8 Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He hath made the rampart and the wall to lament; They languish together. 9 Her gates are sunk into the earth; he hath destroyed and broken her bars; Her king and her princes are among the nations; The law is no more; Her prophets also find no vision from Jehovah. 10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground in silence; They have cast dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth; The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. 11 Mine eyes do fail with tears; my bowels boil; My liver is poured out upon the ground on account of the destruction of the daughter of my people; For the children and sucklings faint in the streets of the city. 12 They say to their mothers, "Where is corn and wine?" While they faint, as one wounded, in the streets of the city; While their life is poured out into their mother’s bosom. 13 How shall I address thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? With what shall I compare thee, so as to comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? Surely thy breach is wide, like the sea; who can heal thee? 14 Thy prophets declare to thee that which is vain and false; They lay not open to thee thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity; They pronounce to thee prophecies of falsehood and seduction. 15 All that that pass by clap their hands at thee; They hiss, and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem. "Is this the city that men called the perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?" 16 All thine enemies open their mouths against thee; They hiss and gnash the teeth; They say: "We have swallowed her up; Yea, this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it." 17 Jehovah hath accomplished that which he had devised; He hath fulfilled his word, which he had commanded in the days of old; He hath thrown down and hath not pitied; He hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath exalted the horn of thine adversaries. 18 Their heart crieth out to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let thy tears run down like a river day and night! Give thyself no rest! let not the apple of thine eye cease! 19 Arise, cry aloud in the night at the beginning of the watches! Pour out thy heart like water before the face of Jehovah! Lift up thy hands to him for the life of thy young children, That faint for hunger at the head of all the streets! 20 "Behold, O Jehovah, and consider! With whom hast thou dealt thus? Shall women eat the fruit of the womb, children borne in the arms? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the holy place of the Lord? 21 "The boy and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; Thou hast killed, and hast shown no mercy. 22 "Thou hast called, as on a festal day, my terrors around me; There was not one, in the day of Jehovah’s anger, that escaped or was left; Those whom I have borne in my arms and brought up hath my enemy consumed."