Lamentations 2 - American Standard Version 2015

¹ How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger!\par\tab He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel,\par\tab And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

² The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:\par\tab He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;\par\tab He hath brought them down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.

³ He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel;\par\tab He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy:\par\tab And he hath burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

⁴ He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary,\par\tab And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye:\par\tab In the tent of the daughter of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire.

⁵ The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel;\par\tab He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds;\par\tab And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

⁶ And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly:\par\tab Jehovah hath caused solemn assembly and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion,\par\tab And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

⁷ The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary;\par\tab He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces:\par\tab They have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

⁸ Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion;\par\tab He hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying;\par\tab And he hath made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.

⁹ Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars:\par\tab Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not;\par\tab Yea, her prophets find no vision from Jehovah.

¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence;\par\tab They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:\par\tab The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.\par

¹¹ Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled;\par\tab My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,\par\tab Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

¹² They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine?\par\tab When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city,\par\tab When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.

¹³ What shall I testify unto thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?\par\tab What shall I compare to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?\par\tab For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?

¹⁴ Thy prophets have seen for thee false and foolish visions;\par\tab And they have not uncovered thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity,\par\tab But have seen for thee false oracles and causes of banishment.

¹⁵ All that pass by clap their hands at thee;\par\tab They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, {\i saying},\par\tab Is this the city that men called\par\tab The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

¹⁶ All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee;\par\tab They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up;\par\tab Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

¹⁷ Jehovah hath done that which he purposed; he hath fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old;\par\tab He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied:\par\tab And he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath exalted the horn of thine adversaries.

¹⁸ Their heart cried unto the Lord:\par\tab O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night;\par\tab Give thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches;\par\tab Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord:\par\tab Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.\par

²⁰ See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus!\par\tab Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands?\par\tab Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹ The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets;\par\tab My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword:\par\tab Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast slaughtered, {\i and} not pitied.

²² Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side;\par\tab And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger:\par\tab Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.\par