Lamentations 2

God Walked Away from His Holy Temple

1 Oh, oh, oh...
How the Master has cut down Daughter Zion from the skies, dashed Israel's glorious city to earth, in his anger treated his favorite as throwaway junk.

2 The Master, without a second thought, took Israel in one gulp. Raging, he smashed Judah's defenses, made hash of her king and princes.

3 His anger blazing, he knocked Israel flat, broke Israel's arm and turned his back just as the enemy approached, came on Jacob like a wildfire from every direction.

4 Like an enemy, he aimed his bow, bared his sword, and killed our young men, our pride and joy. His anger, like fire, burned down the homes in Zion.

5 The Master became the enemy. He had Israel for supper. He chewed up and spit out all the defenses. He left Daughter Judah moaning and groaning.

6 He plowed up his old trysting place, trashed his favorite rendezvous. God wiped out Zion's memories of feast days and Sabbaths, angrily sacked king and priest alike.

7 God abandoned his altar, walked away from his holy Temple and turned the fortifications over to the enemy. As they cheered in God's Temple, you'd have thought it was a feast day!

8 God drew up plans to tear down the walls of Daughter Zion. He assembled his crew, set to work and went at it. Total demolition! The stones wept!

9 Her city gates, iron bars and all, disappeared in the rubble: her kings and princes off to exile—no one left to instruct or lead; her prophets useless—they neither saw nor heard anything from God.

10 The elders of Daughter Zion sit silent on the ground. They throw dust on their heads, dress in rough penitential burlap— the young virgins of Jerusalem, their faces creased with the dirt.

11 My eyes are blind with tears, my stomach in a knot. My insides have turned to jelly over my people's fate. Babies and children are fainting all over the place,

12 Calling to their mothers, "I'm hungry! I'm thirsty!" then fainting like dying soldiers in the streets, breathing their last in their mothers' laps.

13 How can I understand your plight, dear Jerusalem? What can I say to give you comfort, dear Zion? Who can put you together again? This bust-up is past understanding.

14 Your prophets courted you with sweet talk. They didn't face you with your sin so that you could repent. Their sermons were all wishful thinking, deceptive illusions.

15 Astonished, passersby can't believe what they see. They rub their eyes, they shake their heads over Jerusalem. Is this the city voted "Most Beautiful" and "Best Place to Live"?

16 But now your enemies gape, slack-jawed. Then they rub their hands in glee: "We've got them! We've been waiting for this! Here it is!"

17 God did carry out, item by item, exactly what he said he'd do. He always said he'd do this. Now he's done it—torn the place down. He's let your enemies walk all over you, declared them world champions!

18 Give out heart-cries to the Master, dear repentant Zion. Let the tears roll like a river, day and night, and keep at it—no time-outs. Keep those tears flowing!

19 As each night watch begins, get up and cry out in prayer. Pour your heart out face-to-face with the Master. Lift high your hands. Beg for the lives of your children who are starving to death out on the streets.

20 "Look at us, God. Think it over. Have you ever treated anyone like this? Should women eat their own babies, the very children they raised? Should priests and prophets be murdered in the Master's own Sanctuary?

21 "Boys and old men lie in the gutters of the streets, my young men and women killed in their prime. Angry, you killed them in cold blood, cut them down without mercy.

22 "You invited, like friends to a party, men to swoop down in attack so that on the big day of God's wrath no one would get away. The children I loved and reared—gone, gone, gone."

Lamentations 2

1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, And hath not remembered 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 strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He hath brought them down to the ground; he hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.

3 He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: And he hath burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary, And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire.

5 The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds; And he hath multiplied 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 place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused solemn assembly and sabbath 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 Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

8 Jehovah hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying; And he hath made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.

9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yea, her prophets find no vision from Jehovah.

10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they 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 heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

12 They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers’ bosom.

13 What shall I testify unto thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare 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 for thee false and foolish visions; And they have not uncovered thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity, But have seen for thee false oracles 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 called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide 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 Jehovah hath done that which he purposed; he hath fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: And he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath exalted 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 respite; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out thy 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 at the head of every street.

20 See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 The youth and the old man 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 slaughtered, and not pitied.

22 Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah’s anger: Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.