Judgment on Jerusalem
א Alef
Daughter Zion with His anger!
He has thrown down Israel’s glory
from heaven to earth.
He has abandoned His footstool[a]
in the day of His anger.
ב Bet
2 Without compassion the Lord has swallowed up
all the dwellings of Jacob.
In His wrath He has demolished
the fortified cities of Daughter Judah.
He brought them to the ground
and defiled the kingdom and its leaders.
ג Gimel
3 He has cut off every horn of Israel
in His burning anger
and withdrawn His right hand
in the presence of the enemy.
He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
that consumes everything.
ד Dalet
4 He has bent His bow like an enemy;
His right hand is positioned like an adversary.
He has killed everyone who was loved,[b]
pouring out His wrath like fire
on the tent of Daughter Zion.
ה He
5 The Lord is like an enemy;
He has swallowed up Israel.
He swallowed up all its palaces
and destroyed its fortified cities.
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
within Daughter Judah.
ו Vav
6 He has done violence to His temple[c]
as if it were a garden booth,
destroying His place of meeting.
The Lord has abolished
appointed festivals and Sabbaths in Zion.
He has despised king and priest
in His fierce anger.
ז Zayin
7 The Lord has rejected His altar,
repudiated His sanctuary;
He has handed the walls of her palaces
over to the enemy.
They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord
as on the day of an appointed festival.
ח Khet
8 The Lord determined to destroy
the wall of Daughter Zion.
He stretched out a measuring line
and did not restrain Himself from destroying.
He made the ramparts and walls grieve;
together they waste away.
ט Tet
9 Zion’s gates have fallen to the ground;
He has destroyed and shattered the bars on her gates.
Her king and her leaders live among the nations,
instruction[d] is no more,
and even her prophets receive
no vision from the Lord.
י Yod
10 The elders of Daughter Zion
sit on the ground in silence.
They have thrown dust on their heads
and put on sackcloth.
The young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.
כ Kaf
11 My eyes are worn out from weeping;
I am churning within.
My heart is poured out in grief[e]
because of the destruction of my dear people,
because children and infants faint
in the streets of the city.
ל Lamed
12 They cry out to their mothers:
Where is the grain and wine?
as they faint like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
as their lives fade away
in the arms of their mothers.
מ Mem
13 What can I say on your behalf?
What can I compare you to, Daughter Jerusalem?
What can I liken you to,
so that I may console you, Virgin Daughter Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea.
Who can heal you?
נ Nun
14 Your prophets saw visions for you
that were empty and deceptive;
they did not reveal your guilt
and so restore your fortunes.
They saw oracles for you
that were empty and misleading.
ס Samek
15 All who pass by
scornfully clap their hands at you.
They mock[f] and shake their heads
at Daughter Jerusalem:
Is this the city that was called
the perfection of beauty,
the joy of the whole earth?
פ Pe
16 All your enemies
open their mouths against you.
They hiss and gnash their teeth,
saying, “We have swallowed her up.
This is the day we have waited for!
We have lived to see it.”
ע Ayin
17 The Lord has done what He planned;
He has accomplished His decree,
which He ordained in days of old.
He has demolished without compassion,
letting the enemy gloat over you
and exalting the horn of your adversaries.
צ Tsade
18 The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord.
Wall of Daughter Zion,
let your tears run down like a river
day and night.
Give yourself no relief
and your[g] eyes no rest.
ק Qof
19 Arise, cry out in the night
from the first watch of the night.
Pour out your heart like water
before the Lord’s presence.
Lift up your hands to Him
for the lives of your children
who are fainting from hunger
on the corner of every street.
ר Resh
20 Lord, look and consider
who You have done this to.
Should women eat their own children,
the infants they have nurtured?[h]
Should priests and prophets
be killed in the Lord’s sanctuary?
שׁ Shin
21 Both young and old
are lying on the ground in the streets.
My young men and women
have fallen by the sword.
You have killed them in the day of Your anger,
slaughtering without compassion.
ת Tav
22 You summoned my attackers[i] on every side,
as if for an appointed festival day;
on the day of the Lord’s anger
no one escaped or survived.
My enemy has destroyed
those I nurtured[j] and reared.
Footnotes
- Lamentations 2:1 Either the ark of the covenant or the temple
- Lamentations 2:4 Lit killed all the delights of the eye; Ezk 24:16
- Lamentations 2:6 Lit booth
- Lamentations 2:9 Or the law
- Lamentations 2:11 Lit My liver is poured out on the ground
- Lamentations 2:15 Lit hiss
- Lamentations 2:18 Lit and the daughter of your
- Lamentations 2:20 Or infants in a healthy condition; Hb obscure
- Lamentations 2:22 Or terrors
- Lamentations 2:22 Or I bore healthy; Hb obscure