1How the Lord in his anger has beclouded the daughter of Zion! He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
2The Lord has swallowed up and had no pity on all the pastures of Jacob; in his wrath he has torn down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought them down to the ground, he has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3In burning anger he has cut off every horn of Israel; he has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he has burned against Jacob like a flaming fire that devours all around.
4He has bent his bow like an enemy; his right hand set like an adversary; and he has slain all who were the delight of the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire.
5The Lord has become like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces, ruined his strongholds, and multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6He has done violence to his booth as to a garden; he has ruined his meeting place. Yahweh has caused festival and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and in his fierce anger he has spurned king and priest.
7The Lord has rejected his altar, spurned his sanctuary; he has handed over into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces. They have raised a shout in the house of Yahweh as on a day of festival.
8Yahweh has planned to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring line, he did not turn back his hand from swallowing up; he made rampart and wall mourn—together they languish.
9Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and shattered her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; there is no instruction, and even her prophets find no vision from Yahweh.
10They sit on the ground in silence, the elders of the daughter of Zion; they have thrown dust on their heads and girded themselves with sackcloth. The maidens of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
11My eyes are spent with tears, my inward parts churn; my liver is poured out on the ground because of the shattering of the daughter of my people, as child and infant faint in the streets of the city.
12To their mothers they say, “Where is grain and wine?” as they faint like the slain in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom.
13What can I testify to you? To what can I compare you, O daughter Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you, O maiden daughter of Zion? For your shattering is great as the sea; who can heal you?
14Your prophets have envisioned for you falsehood and folly; they did not expose your iniquity so as to restore your fortunes. Rather, they have envisioned for you oracles of falsehood and enticements.
15All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
16All your enemies open wide their mouths against you; they hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day we hoped for; we have found it, we have seen it!”
17Yahweh has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word that he commanded from days of old. He has torn down and had no pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you, he has raised up the horn of your foes.
18Their heart cried out to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no respite; let the daughter of your eye not be still.
19Rise, 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 to him for the life of your children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.
20See, Yahweh, and look: to whom have you done this? Should women eat their own fruit, the children they have cradled? Should priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; my maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered them without pity.
22You summoned, as on a day of festival, my terrors from every side; and on the day of Yahweh’s anger no one escaped or survived. Those whom I cradled and reared my enemy has finished off.
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