1How 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 ! 2The 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. 3He 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 . 4He 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 . 5The 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 . 6And 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 . 7The 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 . 8The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion : he hath stretched out a line , he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying : therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament ; they languished together . 9Her gates are sunk into the ground ; he hath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 . 10The 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 .
The Suffering of the People
11Mine 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 . 12They 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 . 13What 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? 14Thy 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 . 15All 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 ? 16All 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 . 17The 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 . 18Their 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 . 19Arise , 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 .
The Call to God
20Behold , 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 ? 21The 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 . 22Thou 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 .