[a]How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion
    with the cloud of his anger[b]!(A)
He has hurled down the splendor of Israel
    from heaven to earth;
he has not remembered his footstool(B)
    in the day of his anger.(C)

Without pity(D) the Lord has swallowed(E) up
    all the dwellings of Jacob;
in his wrath he has torn down
    the strongholds(F) of Daughter Judah.
He has brought her kingdom and its princes
    down to the ground(G) in dishonor.

In fierce anger he has cut off
    every horn[c][d](H) of Israel.
He has withdrawn his right hand(I)
    at the approach of the enemy.
He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire
    that consumes everything around it.(J)

Like an enemy he has strung his bow;(K)
    his right hand is ready.
Like a foe he has slain
    all who were pleasing to the eye;(L)
he has poured out his wrath(M) like fire(N)
    on the tent(O) of Daughter Zion.

The Lord is like an enemy;(P)
    he has swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all her palaces
    and destroyed her strongholds.(Q)
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation(R)
    for Daughter Judah.(S)

He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden;
    he has destroyed(T) his place of meeting.(U)
The Lord has made Zion forget
    her appointed festivals and her Sabbaths;(V)
in his fierce anger he has spurned
    both king and priest.(W)

The Lord has rejected his altar
    and abandoned his sanctuary.(X)
He has given the walls of her palaces(Y)
    into the hands of the enemy;
they have raised a shout in the house of the Lord
    as on the day of an appointed festival.(Z)

The Lord determined to tear down
    the wall around Daughter Zion.(AA)
He stretched out a measuring line(AB)
    and did not withhold his hand from destroying.
He made ramparts(AC) and walls lament;
    together they wasted away.(AD)

Her gates(AE) have sunk into the ground;
    their bars(AF) he has broken and destroyed.
Her king and her princes are exiled(AG) among the nations,
    the law(AH) is no more,
and her prophets(AI) no longer find
    visions(AJ) from the Lord.

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Footnotes

  1. Lamentations 2:1 This chapter is an acrostic poem, the verses of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
  2. Lamentations 2:1 Or How the Lord in his anger / has treated Daughter Zion with contempt
  3. Lamentations 2:3 Or off / all the strength; or every king
  4. Lamentations 2:3 Horn here symbolizes strength.

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