Lamentations Chapter 2
I groan a lot, and my heart is faint.” Lam 1:21-22
Destruction for Sin
1 How the Lord in his anger has covered Zion under a cloud!
He has thrown down Israel’s splendor from heaven to earth;
he hasn’t remembered his footstool in his wrath.
2 Without mercy the Lord has swallowed up the residents in Jacob.
In his anger he has thrown down Judah’s fortresses
and leveled the kingdom and its officials to the ground in dishonor.
3 In his fury he has cut down Israel’s power
and stopped restraining the enemy.
He has burned like a fire in Jacob
and consumed it everywhere.
4 He has bent his bow like an enemy;
he has set his right hand like an adversary
and killed everybody we took pride in.
He has poured out his anger like fire in the tent of Zion. Lam 2:1-4
5 The Lord has become like an enemy;
he has swallowed up Israel,
laid its palaces in ruins,
destroyed its fortresses,
and multiplied mourning and groaning in Judah.
6 He’s violently treated his Tabernacle like a garden shed
and laid in ruins his appointed meeting place.
Yahveh has stricken from memory
the appointed festivals and Sabbaths in Zion,
and deposed king and priest in his angry indignation.
7 The Lord has rejected his altar, disowned his sanctuary,
and delivered to the enemy the walls of its palaces.
A clamor was raised in Yahveh’s Temple
like that of an appointed festival day.
8 Yahveh decided to destroy the wall around Zion.
He stretched out a line
and didn’t restrain his destroying.
He made rampart and wall mourn;
they’ve broken down together.
Lam 2:5-8
9 Its gates have sunk into the ground;
he has ruined and broken its bars
and scattered its king and officials among the nations.
There’s no law anymore;
prophets don’t have visions from Yahveh.
10 The elders of Zion sit silent on the ground;
they’ve thrown dust on their heads
and wrapped themselves in burlap.
The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes are worn out from crying;
my spirit is in turmoil;
my heart is poured out on the ground
because my people have been destroyed;
the little ones and babies pass out in the street.
12 They ask their mothers, “Where is the bread and wine?”
as they faint like wounded men in the city streets,
as their life dies out on their mother’s chest.
Lam 2:9-12
13 What can I say for you?
What can I compare you to, young woman in Jerusalem?
What can I liken you to, as I comfort you, young virgin in Zion?
Your ruin is as wide as the sea; who can restore you?
14 Your prophets have deceived you with false visions;
they haven’t exposed your iniquity to restore you from sin;
they’ve seen false, misleading oracles for you.
15 Everybody that goes by claps their hands at you;
they gasp and shake their heads at Jerusalem,
“Is this the city they used to say was ‘perfectly beautiful,
a delight to the whole world’?”
16 Your enemies mock you;
they scoff and snarl,
and shout, “We’ve swallowed you up!
That’s what we’ve been waiting for;
at last it’s here to see.”
Lam 2:13-16
17 Yahveh has accomplished his purpose
and carried out the threat he ordained long ago.
He has destroyed without pity
and enabled your enemies to celebrate over you
and increased the power of your adversaries.
18 Their heart appealed to the Lord,
“Resident of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night;
don’t give yourself any relief or let your eyes rest.
19 Get up, cry out loud at the beginning of the night watches;
pour your heart out like water to the Lord;
lift your hands up to him for the life of your little ones
who are faint from hunger at the end of every street.”
20 See, Yahveh, look! Who else have you ever dealt with this way?
Should women eat their offspring, little babies born healthy?
Should prophet and priest be killed in your sanctuary? Lam 2:17-20
21 Young and old lie on the ground in the streets;
my virgins and young men have fallen by the sword.
You’ve slain them in your anger,
slaughtered them without mercy.
22 You invited terrors on every side of me as to an appointed festival.
Nobody escaped or survived your anger.