How hath
the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a
cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven
unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and
remembered not his footstool in the day of his
anger!
02 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations
of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown
down in his wrath the strong holds of the
daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to
the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the
princes thereof.
03 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the
horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand
from before the enemy, and he burned against
Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round
about.
04 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood
with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all
that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle
of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury
like fire.
05 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up
Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he
hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath
increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and
lamentation.
06 And he hath violently taken away his
tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath
destroyed his places of the assembly: the Lord
hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be
forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the
indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
07 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath
abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the
hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they
have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in
the day of a solemn feast.
08 The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of
the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a
line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from
destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the
wall to lament; they languished together.
09 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath
destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her
princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no
more; her prophets also find no vision from the
Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon
the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up
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 are
troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for
the destruction of the daughter of my people;
because the children and the sucklings swoon in
the streets of the city.
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12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and
wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the
streets of the city, when their soul was poured
out into their mothers' bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee?
what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of
Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may
comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy
breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things
for thee: and they have not discovered thine
iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have
seen for thee false burdens and causes of
banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of
Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call
The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole
earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth
against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they
say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is
the day that we looked for; we have found, we
have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised;
he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded
in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath
not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to
rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of
thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the
daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river
day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the
apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning
of the watches pour out thine heart like water
before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands
toward him for the life of thy young children,
that faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast
done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and
children of a span long? shall the priest and the
prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old 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 not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors
round about, so that in the day of the Lord's
anger none escaped nor remained: those that I
have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy
consumed.
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