Lamentations 2 · איכה

How has the Lord covered the daughter of Żiyyon with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Yisra᾽el, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

The Lord has swallowed up without pity all the habitations of Ya῾aqov: he has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Yehuda; he has brought them down to the ground: he has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

He has cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Yisra᾽el: he has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he has burned against Ya῾aqov like a flaming fire, which devours round about.

He has bent his bow like an enemy: with his right hand set like an adversary, he has slain all that were pleasant to the eye: in the tent of the daughter of Żiyyon, he has poured out his fury like fire.

The Lord was like an enemy: he has swallowed up Yisra᾽el, he has swallowed up all her palaces: he has destroyed his strongholds, and has increased in the daughter of Yehuda mourning and lamentation.

And he has stripped his tabernacle, as if it were a garden: he has destroyed his place of assembly: the Lord has caused the appointed seasons and sabbaths to be forgotten in Żiyyon, and has spurned in the indignation of his anger both king and priest.

The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary, he has 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 assembly.

The Lord has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Żiyyon: he has stretched out a line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languish together.

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the nations: there is no Tora; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.

The elders of the daughter of Żiyyon sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Yerushalayim hang down their heads to the ground.

My eyes fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the breach of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the broad places of the city.

They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swoon like wounded men in the broad places of the city, when their soul is poured out into their mothers’ bosom.

What shall I take to witness for thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Yerushalayim? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Żiyyon? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?

Thy prophets have seen for thee vain and foolish visions: and they have not exposed thy iniquity, to restore thy captivity; but have prophesied for thee burdens of falsehood and deceit.

All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Yerushalayim, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

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 have looked for; we have found it, we have seen it.

The Lord has done that which he devised; he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old: he has thrown down without pity: and he has caused the enemy to rejoice over thee, he has raised up the horn of thy adversaries.

Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Żiyyon, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thy eye cease.

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.

Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom Thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, their cherished babes? shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Young and 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 Thy anger; Thou hast killed, and not pitied.

Thou hast called as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors round about, so that in the day of the Lord’s anger none escaped or remained: those that I have cherished and brought up my enemy has consumed.