2

  1How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion
   with the cloud of his anger !
  He has hurled down the splendor of Israel
   from heaven to earth;
  he has not remembered his footstool
   in the day of his anger.

  2Without pity the Lord has swallowed up
   all the dwellings of Jacob;
  in his wrath he has torn down
   the strongholds of Daughter Judah.
  He has brought her kingdom and its princes
   down to the ground in dishonor.

  3In fierce anger he has cut off
   every horn of Israel.
  He has withdrawn his right hand
   at the approach of the enemy.
  He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire
   that consumes everything around it.

  4Like an enemy he has strung his bow;
   his right hand is ready.
  Like a foe he has slain
   all who were pleasing to the eye;
  he has poured out his wrath like fire
   on the tent of Daughter Zion.

  5The Lord is like an enemy;
   he has swallowed up Israel.
  He has swallowed up all her palaces
   and destroyed her strongholds.
  He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
   for Daughter Judah.

  6He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden;
   he has destroyed his place of meeting.
  The Lord has made Zion forget
   her appointed festivals and her Sabbaths;
  in his fierce anger he has spurned
   both king and priest.

  7The Lord has rejected his altar
   and abandoned his sanctuary.
  He has given the walls of her palaces
   into the hands of the enemy;
  they have raised a shout in the house of the Lord
   as on the day of an appointed festival.

  8The Lord determined to tear down
   the wall around Daughter Zion.
  He stretched out a measuring line
   and did not withhold his hand from destroying.
  He made ramparts and walls lament;
   together they wasted away.

  9Her gates have sunk into the ground;
   their bars he has broken and destroyed.
  Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations,
   the law is no more,
  and her prophets no longer find
   visions from the Lord.

  10The elders of Daughter Zion
   sit on the ground in silence;
  they have sprinkled dust on their heads
   and put on sackcloth.
  The young women of Jerusalem
   have bowed their heads to the ground.

  11My eyes fail from weeping,
   I am in torment within;
  my heart is poured out on the ground
   because my people are destroyed,
  because children and infants faint
   in the streets of the city.

  12They say to their mothers,
   “Where is bread and wine?”
  as they faint like the wounded
   in the streets of the city,
  as their lives ebb away
   in their mothers’ arms.

  13What can I say for you?
   With what can I compare you,
   Daughter Jerusalem?
  To what can I liken you,
   that I may comfort you,
   Virgin Daughter Zion?
  Your wound is as deep as the sea.
   Who can heal you?

  14The visions of your prophets
   were false and worthless;
  they did not expose your sin
   to ward off your captivity.
  The prophecies they gave you
   were false and misleading.

  15All who pass your way
   clap their hands at you;
  they scoff and shake their heads
   at Daughter Jerusalem:
  “Is this the city that was called
   the perfection of beauty,
   the joy of the whole earth?”

  16All your enemies open their mouths
   wide against you;
  they scoff and gnash their teeth
   and say, “We have swallowed her up.
  This is the day we have waited for;
   we have lived to see it.”

  17The Lord has done what he planned;
   he has fulfilled his word,
   which he decreed long ago.
  He has overthrown you without pity,
   he has let the enemy gloat over you,
   he has exalted the horn of your foes.

  18The hearts of the people
   cry out to the Lord.
  You walls of Daughter Zion,
   let your tears flow like a river
   day and night;
  give yourself no relief,
   your eyes no rest.

  19Arise, cry out in the night,
   as the watches of the night begin;
  pour out your heart like water
   in the presence of the Lord.
  Lift up your hands to him
   for the lives of your children,
  who faint from hunger
   at every street corner.

  20“Look, Lord, and consider:
   Whom have you ever treated like this?
  Should women eat their offspring,
   the children they have cared for?
  Should priest and prophet be killed
   in the sanctuary of the Lord?

  21“Young and old lie together
   in the dust of the streets;
  my young men and young women
   have fallen by the sword.
  You have slain them in the day of your anger;
   you have slaughtered them without pity.

  22“As you summon to a feast day,
   so you summoned against me terrors on every side.
  In the day of the Lord’s anger
   no one escaped or survived;
  those I cared for and reared
   my enemy has destroyed.”