Lamentations 2

All 22 verses in the Clear Bible Translation. Tap a verse to compare the KJV and read what it means.

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1. 1How the LORD has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down the beauty of Israel from heaven to the earth, and has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger!
2. 2The LORD swallowed up every dwelling in Jacob without pity. In his wrath, he tore down the fortresses of the daughter of Judah, leveling them to the ground. He polluted the kingdom and its princes.
3. 3In his fierce anger, he cut off all the horn of Israel. He drew back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire that devours everything around it.
4. 4He drew his bow like an enemy; he stood with his right hand like an adversary and killed all who were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. He poured out his fury like fire.
5. 5The LORD became like an enemy. He swallowed up Israel—swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her fortresses. He multiplied mourning and lamentation throughout the daughter of Judah.
6. 6He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were a garden. He has destroyed his places of assembly. The LORD has caused the sacred festivals and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and in the fury of his anger he has rejected the king and the priest.
7. 7The LORD has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary, he has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made noise in the house of the LORD, as on a solemn feast day.
8. 8The LORD was determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not hold back from demolishing it. He made both rampart and wall grieve — together they crumbled.
9. 9Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles. The law is no more, and her prophets also receive no vision from the LORD.
10. 10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and dressed themselves in sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem bow their faces to the ground.
11. 11My eyes are worn out from weeping, my insides are troubled, my liver is poured out on the ground over the destruction of my people, because children and infants are collapsing in the city streets.
12. 12They cry out to their mothers, "Where is the bread? Where is the wine?" They collapse like the wounded in the city streets, as their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
13. 13What can I take as a witness for you? What can I compare to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What can I match with you, so I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is as great as the sea. Who can heal you?
14. 14Your prophets have given you empty and foolish visions. They have not revealed your sin to turn away your captivity, but instead have given you false burdens and causes of banishment.
15. 15Everyone who passes by claps their hands at you in mockery. They hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, "Is this the city people once called 'The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth'?"
16. 16All your enemies open their mouths wide against you. They hiss and grind their teeth, saying, "We've devoured her! This is the day we've been waiting for — we've lived to see it!"
17. 17The LORD has carried out exactly what he planned. He fulfilled the word he decreed long ago. He tore you down without pity. He let your enemies celebrate over you and raised up the power of those who oppose you.
18. 18Their heart cried out to the Lord. Wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no rest. Do not let your eyes stop weeping.
19. 19Get up and cry out in the night, at the start of every watch! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift your hands to him for the lives of your little children, who are fainting from hunger at the corner of every street.
20. 20"Look, LORD, and consider — who have you done this to? Should mothers eat the children they carried and cradled? Should priests and prophets be slaughtered in the sanctuary of the Lord?"
21. 21The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have slain them in the day of your anger; you have killed, and not pitied.
22. 22"You summoned terrors against me from every direction, as if calling people to a festival. On the day of the LORD's anger, no one escaped and no one survived. The children I cared for and raised — my enemy has destroyed them all."