Lamentations 2:8-15

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁸ The Lord determined to lay in ruins
    the wall of daughter Zion;
he stretched the line;
    he did not withhold his hand from destroying;
he caused rampart and wall to lament;
    they languish together.^(A)

⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground;
    he has ruined and broken her bars;
her king and princes are among the nations;
    guidance is no more,
and her prophets obtain
    no vision from the Lord.^(B)

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

¹¹ My eyes are spent with weeping;
    my stomach churns;
my bile is poured out on the ground
    because of the destruction of my people,^[a]
because infants and babes faint
    in the streets of the city.^(D)

¹² They cry to their mothers,
    “Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like the wounded
    in the streets of the city,
as their life is poured out
    on their mothers’ bosoms.^(E)

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?^(F)

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.^(G)

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?”^(H)