God’s Anger over Jerusalem
1 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
with a cloud in his anger!
He has cast the beauty of Israel down
from heaven to the earth,
and has not remembered his footstool
in the day of his anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up, without pity,
all the dwellings of Jacob.
He has thrown down, in his wrath,
the strongholds of the daughter of Judah.
He has brought them down to the ground.
He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off the horn of Israel in fierce anger.
He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy.
He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire,
which devours all around.
4 He has bent his bow like an enemy.
He has stood with his right hand as an adversary.
He has killed all that was pleasant to the eye.
In the tent of the daughter of Zion,
he has poured out his wrath like fire.
5 The Lord has become like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all her palaces.
He has destroyed his strongholds.
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
in the daughter of Judah.
6 He has violently taken away his tabernacle,
as if it were a garden.
He has destroyed his place of assembly.
The Lord has caused appointed feasts and Sabbaths
to be forgotten in Zion.
In the indignation of his anger,
he has despised the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has cast off his altar.
He has abhorred his sanctuary.
He has given the walls of her palaces
into the hand of the enemy.
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord,
as in the day of an appointed feast.
8 The Lord has planned to destroy the wall
of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out the line.
He has not withdrawn his hand from destroying.
He has made the rampart and wall lament.
They languish together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground.
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations
where the law is not.
Yes, her prophets find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
sit on the ground in silence.
They have cast up dust on their heads.
They have clothed themselves with sackcloth.
The young women of Jerusalem
hang their heads down to the ground.
11 My eyes fail with tears.
My heart is troubled.
My heart is poured out on the ground,
because of the destruction
of the daughter of my people,
because the young children and the infants
faint in the streets of the city.
12 They ask their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
when they faint like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
when their heart is poured out
into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What shall I testify to you?
What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare to you,
that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion?
For your breach is as big as the sea.
Who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen false and foolish visions for you.
They have not uncovered your iniquity,
to reverse your captivity,
but have seen for you,
false revelations and misleading oracles.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at you.
They scoff and shake their head
at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
“Is this the city that men called
‘The perfection of beauty,
the joy of the whole earth’?”
16 All your enemies
have opened their mouth wide against you.
They scoff and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up.
Certainly this is the day that we looked for.
We have found it.
We have seen it.”
17 The Lord has done that which he planned.
He has fulfilled his word
that he commanded in the days of old.
He has thrown down,
and has not pitied.
He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you.
He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried to the Lord.
O wall of the daughter of Zion,
let tears run down like a river day and night.
Give yourself no relief.
Do not let the your eyes rest.
19 Arise, cry out in the night,
at the beginning of the watches!
Pour out your heart like water
before the face of the Lord.
Lift up your hands toward him
for the life of your young children,
who faint for hunger
at the head of every street.
20 Look, Lord, and see
to whom you have done this!
Should the women eat their offspring,
the children that they held and bounced on their knees?
Should the priest and the prophet be killed
in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The youth and the old man
lie on the ground in the streets.
My young women and my young men
have fallen by the sword.
You have killed them in the day of your anger.
You have slaughtered and not pitied.
22 You have called for my attackers,
as in the day of an appointed feast,
terrors on every side.
There was no one that escaped or remained
in the day of the Lord’s anger.
My enemy has consumed
those whom I have cared for and brought up.