LEB LAM Chapter 2

The Lord is Angry

• the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion in a cloud!
• He has thrown down from heavens to earth
  • the splendor of Israel,
• and he has not remembered his footstool
  • in the day of his anger .[fn]
  • 2 The Lord has devoured; he has not shown mercy to all the dwellings of Jacob;
• he has broken down in his wrath
  • the fortifications of the daughter of Judah;
• he has leveled to the ground, he has dishonored
  • the kingdom and its commanders.[fn]
  • 3 He has cut down in fierce anger[fn] all the might of Israel;
• he has withdrawn his right hand
  • from the faces of the enemy,
• and he has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire,
  • it has consumed all around.
  • 4 He has bent his bow like an enemy; he has set his right hand
• like a foe, and he has slain
  • all the treasures of the eye;[fn]
• in the tent of the daughter of Zion,
  • he has poured out his anger like fire.
  • 5 The Lord has become like an enemy; he has destroyed Israel;
• he has destroyed all its citadel fortresses;[fn]
  • he has ruined all its fortifications
• and multiplied lamentation and mourning
  • in the daughter of Judah.
  • 6 He has broken down his dwelling[fn] place like the garden; he has ruined his appointed feasts;
• Yahweh has made them forget in Zion
  • festival[fn] and Sabbath,
• and he has despised in his anger
  • king and priest.
  • 7 The Lord has rejected his altar; he has rejected his sanctuary;
• he has delivered into the hands of the enemy
  • the walls of its citadel fortresses.[fn]
• They have cried out in the house of Yahweh
  • like a day of an appointed feast.
  • 8 Yahweh has planned to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion.
• He measured with a line; he has not restrained
  • his hand from destroying;
• he caused rampart and wall to mourn;
  • together they have languished away.
  • 9 Her gates have sunk into the earth; he has ruined and broken her bars,
• her kings and its princes are among the nations;
  • there is no more law.[fn]
• Also, her prophets have not found
  • a revelation from Yahweh.
  • 10 They sit on the ground, the elders of the daughter of Zion are silent.
• They cast dust on their head,
  • they have put on sackcloth;
• the young women of Jerusalem
  • have bowed their head down to the ground.
  • 11 My eyes have spent all their tears ;[fn] my stomach[fn] is in torment,
• my heart[fn] is poured out on the earth
  • because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
• because child and babe faint
  • in the public squares of a city.
  • 12 To their mothers they say, “Where is the bread and wine?”
• as they faint like the wounded
  • in the public squares of a city,
• as their life is being poured out
  • onto the bosom of their mothers.
  • 13 What can I say for you? What can I compare to you, O daughter of Jerusalem?
• To what can I liken you so that I can comfort you,
  • O virgin daughter of Zion?
• For your destruction is as vast as the sea;
  • who can heal you?
  • 14 Your prophets had a vision for you, false and worthless;
• they have not exposed your sin,
  • to restore your fortune;
• they have seen oracles for you,
  • false and misleading.
  • 15 They clap hands over you, all who pass along the way;
• they hiss and they shake their head,
  • at the daughter of Jerusalem.
• Is this the city of which it is said,
  • “A perfection of beauty, a joy for all the earth?”
  • 16 They have opened their mouths against you, all your enemies.
• They hiss and gnash a tooth,
  • and they say, “We have destroyed her!
• Surely this is the day we have hoped for;
  • we have found it, we have seen it!”
  • 17 Yahweh has done what he has planned; he has fulfilled his promise
• that he ordained from the days of old;
  • he has demolished and not shown mercy;
• he has made an enemy rejoice over you,
  • he has exalted the might[fn] of your foes.
  • 18 Their heart cried to the Lord, “O wall of the daughter of Zion,
• let tears stream down like a river;
  • day and night,
• do not give yourself relief,
  • do not give your eyes rest.
  • 19 “Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the night watches;
• pour out your heart like water,
  • before the face of the Lord.
• Lift to him your hands,
  • for the life of your children,
• who faint in starvation,
  • at the head of all streets.”
  • 20 See, Yahweh, and take note! With whom have you dealt thus?
• Should women eat their young
  • children of tender care?
• Should priest and prophet be slain
  • in the sanctuary of the Lord?
  • 21 They lie in the soil of the streets, young and old;
• my young women[fn] and young men,
  • they have fallen by the sword;
• you have slain on the day of your anger ,[fn]
  • you have slaughtered and not shown mercy.
  • 22 You have summoned my horror from all around, as if for a feast day;
• no one on the day of Yahweh’s anger
  • is a fugitive and a survivor;
• whoever I have cared for and reared,
  • my enemy has destroyed.