Lamentations 2:1-9

Contemporary English Version

The Lord Was Like an Enemy

The Prophet Speaks:

2 The Lord was angry!
    So he disgraced^[a] Zion
though it was Israel's pride
    and his own place of rest.
In his anger he threw Zion down
    from heaven to earth.
²The Lord had no mercy!
He destroyed the homes
    of Jacob's descendants.
In his anger he tore down
    every walled city in Judah;
he toppled the nation
together with its leaders,
    leaving them in shame.

³The Lord was so furiously angry
that he wiped out
    the whole army^[b] of Israel
by not supporting them
    when the enemy attacked.
He was like a raging fire
that swallowed up
    the descendants of Jacob.
⁴He attacked like an enemy
with a bow and arrows,
    killing our loved ones.
He has burned to the ground
    the homes on Mount Zion.^[c]

⁵The Lord was like an enemy!
    He left Israel in ruins
with its palaces
    and fortresses destroyed,
and with everyone in Judah
    moaning and weeping.
⁶He shattered his temple
    like a hut in a garden;^[d]
he completely wiped out
    his meeting place,
and did away with festivals
and Sabbaths
    in the city of Zion.
In his fierce anger he rejected
    our king and priests.

⁷The Lord abandoned his altar
    and his temple;
he let Zion's enemies
    capture her fortresses.
Noisy shouts were heard
    from the temple,
as if it were a time
    of celebration.

⁸The Lord had decided
to tear down the walls of Zion
    stone by stone.
So he started destroying
    and did not stop
until walls and fortresses
    mourned and trembled.
⁹Zion's gates have fallen
    facedown on the ground;
the bars that locked the gates
    are smashed to pieces.
Her king and royal family
are prisoners
    in foreign lands.
Her priests don't teach,
and her prophets don't have
    a message from the Lord.

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Footnotes

2.1 disgraced: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
2.3 army: The Hebrew text has “horn,” which refers to the horn of a bull, one of the most powerful animals in ancient Palestine.
2.4 the homes on Mount Zion: Or “the temple on Mount Zion.”
2.6 He … garden: Or “He shattered the temple walls, as if they were the walls of a garden.”