Lamentations 2:4-6

The Voice

⁴ Deployed like an enemy, God stood poised against Judah—
    bow bent, right hand clinched—crashing down
On everything that we admired
    among daughter Zion’s tents.
The anger of the Lord whipped like flickering flames to reduce it to ashes.

⁵ Enemy of ours—our God—who would have thought?
    Yet the Lord chewed up Israel,
Swallowed its mighty palaces;
    He spit out fortresses and reduced them to dust.
God increased suffering and sorrow
    to a fever pitch in daughter Judah.

⁶ Felling His own dwelling like a garden hut,
    God destroyed His meeting place;
He did away with the sacred festivals and Sabbaths in Zion,
    and in fierce anger
He ignored and spurned our leaders—
    our king and priests alike.