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Chapter 2 |
| 1 | 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! |
| 2 | 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. |
| 3 | 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. |
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4 | 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. |
| 5 |
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. |
| 6 | 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. |
| 7 | 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. |
| 8 | 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not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the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. |
|
9 | 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. |
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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. |
| 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. |
