Lamentations 2:1-10

English Standard Version

The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity

2 How the Lord in his anger
    has set the daughter of Zion ^(A)under a cloud!
^(B)He has cast down from heaven to earth
    the splendor of Israel;
he has not remembered ^(C)his footstool
    in the day of his anger.

²The Lord ^(D)has swallowed up ^(E)without mercy
    all the habitations of Jacob;
in his wrath ^(F)he has broken down
    the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
he has brought ^(G)down to the ground ^(H)in dishonor
    the kingdom ^(I)and its rulers.

³He has cut down in ^(J)fierce anger
    all ^(K)the might of Israel;
^(L)he has withdrawn from them his right hand
    in the face of the enemy;
^(M)he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,
    consuming all around.

⁴^(N)He has bent his bow like an enemy,
with his right hand set ^(O)like a foe;
and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes
in the tent of the daughter of Zion;
he has poured out his fury like fire.

⁵^(P)The Lord has become like an enemy;
    ^(Q)he has swallowed up Israel;
^(R)he has swallowed up all its palaces;
    he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
    ^(S)mourning and lamentation.

⁶He has laid waste his booth like a garden,
laid in ruins ^(T)his meeting place;
^(U)the Lord has made Zion forget
festival and ^(V)Sabbath,
and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.

⁷^(W)The Lord has scorned his altar,
    ^(X)disowned his sanctuary;
^(Y)he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
    the walls of her palaces;
^(Z)they raised a clamor in the house of the Lord
    as on the day of festival.

⁸^(AA)The Lord determined to lay in ruins
    ^(AB)the wall of the daughter of Zion;
^(AC)he stretched out the measuring line;
    he did not restrain his hand from destroying;
^(AD)he caused rampart and wall to lament;
    ^(AE)they languished together.

⁹Her gates have sunk into the ground;
    ^(AF)he has ruined ^(AG)and broken her bars;
^(AH)her king and princes are among the nations;
    the law is no more,
and ^(AI)her prophets find
    no vision from the Lord.

¹⁰The elders of the daughter of Zion
    ^(AJ)sit on the ground ^(AK)in silence;
^(AL)they have thrown dust on their heads
    and ^(AM)put on sackcloth;
the young women of Jerusalem
    have bowed their heads to the ground.