Lamentations
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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. 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. 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hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the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 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? 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.
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