Lamentations 2:8-15
Authorized (King James) Version
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy
the wall of the daughter of Zion:
he hath stretched out a line,
he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament;
they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground;
he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
her king and her princes are among the Gentiles:
the law is no more;
her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
they have cast up dust upon their heads;
they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears,
my bowels are troubled,
my liver is poured upon the earth,
for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
because the children and the sucklings
swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
Where is corn and wine?
when they swooned as the wounded
in the streets of the city,
when their soul was poured out
into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee?
what thing shall I liken to thee,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
for thy breach is great like the sea:
who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
and they have not discovered thine iniquity,
to turn away thy captivity;
but have seen for thee false burdens
and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem,
saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty,
The joy of the whole earth?
KJV reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK.