Lamentations 2:13-22

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹³ What can I say for you, to what compare you,
    O daughter Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you,
    O virgin daughter Zion?
For vast as the sea is your ruin;
    who can heal you?^(A)

¹⁴ Your prophets have seen for you
    false and deceptive visions;
they have not exposed your iniquity
    to restore your fortunes
but have seen oracles for you
    that are false and misleading.^(B)

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

¹⁶ All your enemies
    open their mouths against you;
they hiss, they gnash their teeth,
    they cry: “We have devoured her!
Ah, this is the day we longed for;
    at last we have seen it!”^(D)

¹⁷ The Lord has done what he purposed;
    he has carried out his threat;
as he ordained long ago,
    he has demolished without pity;
he has made the enemy rejoice over you
    and exalted the might of your foes.^(E)

¹⁸ Cry aloud^[a] to the Lord!
    O wall of daughter Zion!
Let tears stream down like a torrent
    day and night!
Give yourself no rest,
    your eyes no respite!^(F)

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night,
    at the beginning of the watches!
Pour out your heart like water
    before the presence of the Lord!
Lift your hands to him
    for the lives of your children,
who faint for hunger
    at the head of every street.^(G)

²⁰ Look, O Lord, and consider!
    To whom have you done this?
Should women eat their offspring,
    the children they have borne?
Should priest and prophet be killed
    in the sanctuary of the Lord?^(H)

²¹ The young and the old are lying
    on the ground in the streets;
my young women and my young men
    have fallen by the sword;
in the day of your anger you have killed them,
    slaughtering without mercy.^(I)

²² You invited my enemies from all around
    as if for a day of festival;
and on the day of the anger of the Lord,
    no one escaped or survived;
those whom I bore and reared,
    my enemy has destroyed.^(J)