The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Lamentations of Jeremiah 02
1 How has the Lord 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 hasn’t remembered his footstool
in the day of his anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up all the
dwellings of Jacob without pity.
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 all 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 were 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 as 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. Yahweh has caused solemn assembly
and Sabbath 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 Yahweh’s
house, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
8 Yahweh has purposed 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He has not withdrawn his hand from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
Yahweh.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on
the ground. They keep silence.
They have cast up dust on their heads.
They have clothed themselves with
sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down
their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes fail with tears.
My heart is troubled.
My bile is poured on the earth,
because of the destruction of the
daughter of my people, because the
young children and the infants swoon
in the streets of the city.
12 They ask their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
when they swoon as the wounded in
the streets of the city,
when their soul 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 causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at you.
They hiss and wag 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 hiss 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 Yahweh has done that which heplanned.
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.
Don’t let 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, Yahweh, and see to whom you
have done thus! 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 virgins 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, as in the day of a
solemn assembly, my terrors on every side.
There was no one that escaped or
remained in the day of Yahweh’s
anger. My enemy has consumed those whom
I have cared for and brought up.