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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. |
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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. |
| 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. |
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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out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made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? |
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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. |
