1
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger , and cast down from heaven to 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 its princes .
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 on every side .
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 in the indignation of his anger hath despised 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The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion : he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.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 .
11
My 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 revealed thy 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 thy 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 thy enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thy 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 thyself no rest; let not the apple of thy eye cease.
19
Arise, cry out in the night : in the beginning of the watches pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands towards him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
20
Behold, O LORD , and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit , 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 have fallen by the sword ; thou hast slain them in the day of thy anger ; thou hast killed , and not pitied.
22
Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors around, so that in the day of the LORD 'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up, hath my enemy consumed.