Lamentations 2:8-15

Revised Standard Version

⁸ The Lord determined to lay in ruins
    the wall of the daughter of Zion;
he marked it off by the line;
    he restrained not his hand from destroying;
he caused rampart and wall to lament,
    they languish together.

⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground;
    he has ruined and broken her bars;
her king and princes are among the nations;
    the law is no more,
and her prophets obtain
    no vision from the Lord.

¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion
    sit on the ground in silence;
they have cast dust on their heads
    and put on sackcloth;
the maidens of Jerusalem
    have bowed their heads to the ground.

¹¹ My eyes are spent with weeping;
    my soul is in tumult;
my heart is poured out in grief^[a]
    because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
because infants and babes faint
    in the streets of the city.

¹² They cry to their mothers,
    “Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like wounded men
    in the streets of the city,
as their life is poured out
    on their mothers’ bosom.

¹³ What can I say for you, to what compare you,
    O daughter of Jerusalem?
What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you,
    O virgin daughter of Zion?
For vast as the sea is your ruin;
    who can restore you?

¹⁴ Your prophets have seen for you
    false and deceptive visions;
they have not exposed your iniquity
    to restore your fortunes,
but have seen for you oracles
    false and misleading.

¹⁵ All who pass along the way
    clap their hands at you;
they hiss and wag their heads
    at the daughter of Jerusalem;
“Is this the city which was called
    the perfection of beauty,
    the joy of all the earth?”