Lamentations 2
Expanded Bible
The Lord Destroyed Jerusalem
2 Look how the Lord in his anger
has ·brought Jerusalem to shame [L treated the daughter of Zion with contempt; or brought a cloud over the daughter of Zion].
He has thrown down the ·greatness [splendor; beauty] of Israel
from the ·sky [heavens] to the earth;
he did not remember his footstool [C the Temple; Ps. 99:5; 132:7],
on the day of his anger.
2 The Lord swallowed up without ·mercy [pity]
all the ·houses [homes; dwellings] of the people of Jacob;
in his anger he ·pulled down [demolished]
the strong places of [L the daughter of] Judah.
He threw her kingdom and its rulers
down to the ground in dishonor.
3 In his anger he has ·removed [cut to pieces]
all the ·strength [L horn; C a symbol of pride and power] of Israel;
he took away his ·power [L right hand] from Israel
when the enemy came.
He burned against the people of Jacob [C another name for Israel] like a flaming fire
that burns up everything around it.
4 Like an enemy, he ·prepared to shoot [bent; drew] his bow,
and his right hand was against us [Ps. 7:12–13].
Like an ·enemy [foe], he killed
all ·the good-looking people [L which eye desired];
he poured out his anger like fire
on the tents of ·Jerusalem [L the daughter of Zion; C the location of the Temple].
5 The Lord was like an enemy;
he swallowed up Israel.
He swallowed up all her palaces
and destroyed all her strongholds.
He has ·caused more [multiplied] moaning and groaning
for ·Judah [L the daughter of Judah].
6 He ·cut down [laid waste to; violently treated] his ·Temple [L booth] like a ·garden [vineyard];
he destroyed the meeting place.
The Lord has made ·Jerusalem [L Zion; C the location of the Temple] forget
the ·set feasts [or meeting place] and Sabbath days.
He has ·rejected [despised] the king and the priest
in his great anger.
7 The Lord has rejected his altar
and ·abandoned [disavowed] his ·Temple [L Holy Place; Ezek. 9–11].
He has ·handed over to [L delivered into the hand of] the enemy
the walls of its [C probably Jerusalem’s] palaces.
·Their uproar [L They gave forth voice] in the Lord’s ·Temple [L house]
was like that of a feast day.
8 The Lord planned to destroy
the wall around ·Jerusalem [L the daughter of Zion; C the location of the Temple].
He ·measured the wall [L extended a measuring line; C usually used in construction but here in demolition]
and did not stop himself from ·destroying [L swallowing] it.
He made the walls and ·defenses [ramparts] ·sad [mourn];
together they have ·fallen [languished].
9 ·Jerusalem’s [L Its] gates have ·fallen [sunk] to the ground;
he destroyed and smashed the bars [C of the gates; Ps. 107:16; Is. 45:2; Jer. 51:30; Nah. 3:13].
Her king and her princes are among the nations.
The ·teaching [law; instruction; C God’s law] has stopped,
and the prophets do not have
visions from the Lord.
10 The elders of ·Jerusalem [L the daughter of Zion; C the location of the Temple]
sit on the ground in silence.
They throw dust on their heads
and put on ·rough cloth [sackcloth; burlap; signs of grief or repentance].
The young women of Jerusalem
bow their heads to the ground [C in sorrow].
11 My eyes ·have no more tears [L are exhausted from tears],
and ·I am sick to my stomach [L my innards/stomach/bowels are agitated].
·I feel empty inside [L My bile/gall is poured out on the ground],
because ·my people [L the daughter of my people] have been ·destroyed [shattered; broken].
Children and ·babies [nurslings] are fainting
in the ·streets [public areas] of the city.
12 They ask their mothers,
“Where is the grain and wine?”
They faint like wounded soldiers
in the ·streets [public areas] of the city
and ·die [L pour out their lives] in their mothers’ ·arms [L bosom].
13 What can I ·say [testify] about you, [L daughter] Jerusalem?
What can I compare you to?
What can I say you are like?
How can I comfort you, ·Jerusalem [L virgin daughter Zion; C location of the Temple]?
Your ·ruin [wound] is as ·deep [great] as the sea.
·No one [L Who…?] can heal you.
14 Your prophets saw visions,
but they were ·false [empty] and ·worth nothing [insipid; nonsense; Ezek. 10:10–12].
They did not ·point out [expose] your ·sins [guilt]
to ·keep you from being captured [or restore your fortunes].
They ·preached what was [L saw oracles for you that were] ·false [empty]
and ·led you wrongly [fraudulent].
15 All who pass by on the road
clap their hands at you [C in approval of Jerusalem’s destruction; Ezek. 25:6];
they ·make fun of [hiss at; C in scorn; 1 Kin. 9:8; Jer. 19:8; Zeph. 2:15] [L the daughter of] Jerusalem
and shake their heads.
They ask, “Is this the city that people called
the most beautiful city,
the ·happiest place on [joy of the whole] earth [Ps. 48:2]?”
16 All your enemies ·open [L crack] their mouths
to speak against you.
They make fun and ·grind [gnash] their teeth [C in anger].
They say, “We have swallowed you up.
This is the day we were ·waiting [hoping] for!
We have finally seen it happen.”
17 The Lord has done what he planned;
he has ·kept [fulfilled] his ·word [threat; C the covenant curses; Deut. 28:45–50]
that he commanded ·long ago [L in days of old].
He has ·destroyed [demolished] without ·mercy [pity],
and he has let your enemies laugh at you [C such as Edom; Obad. 1–21].
He has ·strengthened [L exalted the horn of; C symbol of pride and power] your enemies.
18 ·The people [L Their hearts] cry out to the Lord.
Wall of ·Jerusalem [L the daughter of Zion; C the location of the Temple],
let your tears flow
like a ·river [torrent; wadi] day and night.
Do not ·stop [L allow yourself relaxation]
or let your eyes rest.
19 Get up, cry out in the night,
·even as the night begins [L at the beginning of the night watches; C the night was divided into three four-hour watches].
Pour out your heart like water
·in prayer to [L before the presence/face of] the Lord.
Lift up your hands in prayer to him
for the life of your children
who are ·fainting [growing weak] with hunger
·on every street corner [L at the head of every street].
20 Jerusalem says: “Look, Lord, and see
to whom you have done this.
·Women [L Should women…?] eat their own ·babies [L fruit; C short for “fruit of their womb”],
the children ·they have cared for [they have nursed/borne; or which are well-formed; Deut. 28:53–55; Jer. 19:6–9].
·Priests and prophets are [L Should priests and prophets be…?] killed
in the ·Temple [L holy place] of the Lord.
21 “People young and old
lie outside on the ground.
My young women and young men
have ·been killed [L fallen] by the sword.
You killed them on the day of your anger;
you ·killed [slaughtered] them without ·mercy [pity].
22 “You invited ·terrors [or enemies] to come against me on every side,
as if ·you were inviting them to a feast [L on an appointed/feast day].
No one escaped or remained alive
on the day of the Lord’s anger.
My enemy has ·killed [annihilated]
those I ·cared for [nursed; bore] and brought up.”
Lamentations 2
The Voice
2 Aaghh! How could the Lord surround Zion in a cloud of His anger
as if He has cast the beauty of Israel down from heaven to earth?
Majestic Israel, God’s footstool,
is debased by God’s anger in a moment of wrath.
2 Buried beneath the dust,
Jacob’s houses have been swallowed.
The Lord did this without mercy,
shattering her fortresses.
God brought down to the ground daughter Judah,
and defiled her kingdom and her leaders.
3 Cut down by God’s anger,
the pride and strength of Israel falls;
He withdrew His right hand and stood back and allowed Israel’s enemies
to wreak havoc in the land.
God has burned and consumed Jacob
in an insatiable fire.
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.
7 God disdained the most sacred religious spots—
His altar, His sanctuary, the centerpiece of our tradition.
The Lord gave our enemy full charge of the city,
palaces and all.
And in the temple itself, the Eternal’s house,
they hoot and holler as if it’s one of our sacred festivals.
For generations the Judeans have looked upon the temple in their midst as a comfort and even a protection. Jeremiah stood before the temple and preached to these same people that they should not trust in the lying words of others: “Change your ways and stop what you are doing, and I will let you live in this land. Do not rely on the misguided words, ‘The temple of the Eternal, the temple of the Eternal, the temple of the Eternal,’ as if the temple’s presence alone will protect you” (Jeremiah 7:3–4). Even good things from God can be misconstrued to turn us away from Him. Now the temple itself will be brought low because of the hard hearts of the people.
8 Hesitating not for one moment,
the Eternal measured across the city of daughter Zion;
Unrelenting, He was determined to destroy,
to bring the city down with rampart and wall
To its knees in rubble and grief.
9 Into the earth, Jerusalem’s defenses, the bars and gates, are sunk—
her leaders, both king and prince, scattered among surrounding nations,
Gone to foreign places.
Now there is no law, no wise instruction;
The prophets receive no divine visions;
who can see the Eternal’s way?
10 Jerusalem elders of daughter Zion are mute,
dispensing no precious wisdom.
They sit on the ground distraught, clad in sackcloth;
they hurl dust on their heads.
The young maidens of Jerusalem hang their heads
down to the ground.
11 Knowing the fate of Zion, my insides are in turmoil and pour out
for Jerusalem, the devastation of the daughter of my people.
I can’t see because of the tears for the children in the streets—
I can’t stop crying for infants and toddlers too weak to wail.
My people are destroyed.
12 Little Children: Mother, grain and wine—where is it?
Like the wounded,
collapsing in the city streets,
They pine and die
on their mother’s breast.
13 My dear daughter Jerusalem,
how can I tell your tragedy?
To what can I liken this disgrace?
O virgin daughter Zion, would that I could comfort you.
Who can heal your massive injury
that is as deep and wide as the sea?
14 Nothing but vanity from your prophets—
nothing but worthlessness from them;
They never warned and exposed you to correct your wicked ways
so that things would go well again with no captivity.
Instead, they told divine oracles of lies and deceit,
that everything was fine.
15 On your head, now, passersby heap scorn;
they wag their fingers, shake their heads at daughter Jerusalem.
Passersby: Is this the city everyone thought was so great—
a city of perfect beauty and
Earth’s pride and joy?
16 Pursuing you, your enemies cut you down.
Enemies: Ha! Would the day ever come? We’ve got her now!
Look, we’ve swallowed her whole, destroyed her.
We waited anxiously for today,
and we made it happen!
17 Question the Eternal One about what He has done.
He determined—punished according to the term and tenets
He laid down so long ago.
He executed fierce destruction without pity
And made your enemy glad.
He has made them prevail with might.
18 Raise your cry to the Lord with all your might!
Take no relief; be ceaseless in grief.
Lady Jerusalem: Oh walls, may your stones cry out,
cry out for daughter Zion;
Make rivers with tears of sorrow, rushing.
Do not cease from your weeping.
19 Stand up and yell in the night with all your heart;
call to God even while the city sleeps during the night watch;
Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord!
Lift your hands and plead to Him for the lives of your children,
For the babies weak with hunger
dying on every street corner.
20 Take heed, Eternal One!
Look what You’ve done and to whom you have done this.
Can it be—women eat their offspring, even their tender newborns;
and in the most sacred places of the Eternal,
Priests and prophets are slaughtered?
21 Unable to go on, young and old fall,
lying in the dusty streets.
My strong young men and women, all unmarried,
are attacked and killed by Your sword in Your anger.
You are responsible for this mayhem and misery.
You, God, slew without pity.
22 Victims all, You summoned those terrors surrounding me
as if You were calling together a sacred festival.
On the day of Your divine wrath there was no escapee,
not even one survivor.
The ones whom I raised up and made numerous,
my enemy made a complete end of them.
Lamentations 2
King James Version
2 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.
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?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the Lord's anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
The Expanded Bible, Copyright © 2011 Thomas Nelson Inc. All rights reserved.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.