Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

30 Lord, I will praise you,
    because you have saved me from death.
You have not let my enemies laugh at me.
² Lord, my God, I called to you for help,
    and you have made me well again.
³ Lord, you pulled me up
    out of the deep hole of death.
You saved me
    from among those who are going into the grave.
⁴ Sing to the Lord,
    you people who trust him.
Praise his holy name.
⁵ His anger continues only for a moment,
    but he is kind to us for our whole life.
You may be sad all through the night,
    but in the morning, you will be happy again.^[b]

2 The Lord was very angry.
He wanted Zion's people to be ashamed.
Zion was the most beautiful city in Israel.^[b]
But he has put it down to the ground from its high place.
Zion was like a place where he had rested his feet.^[c]
Now that he is angry, he has forgotten about that.
² The Lord has destroyed all the houses where Jacob's people lived.
He decided that he must punish them.
Because he is angry,
he has destroyed all Judah's strong towns.
Yes, he has destroyed all the buildings, and he has killed the rulers and all the people.
³ Yes, because he is very angry,
he has destroyed Israel's whole army.
He did not help them when they were fighting the enemy.
He was like a big hot fire
that burned Jacob's people from all sides.
⁴ He prepared his bow and his arrows, like an enemy ready to kill people.
Like an enemy, he has killed all our strong men that once we were proud of.
He has shown how angry he was.
He has sent a fire to destroy all Zion's houses.
⁵ The Lord has become like an enemy.
He has destroyed Israel
and all the beautiful houses there.
He has destroyed all the strong towns that had walls.
He has caused Judah's people to weep.
They are very sad.
⁶ He has knocked down his own holy house
as easily as someone can knock down a hut in a garden.
He has destroyed this place where people once met him.
The Lord has caused Zion's people to forget
the special events and the Sabbath days in his holy house.^[d]
He was very angry.
So he thought that our king and our priests were not important.
He refused to help them.
⁷ His holy house and his altar there
no longer give pleasure to the Lord.
He has given Zion's most beautiful houses to the enemy.^[e]
They shout in the holy house of the Lord
as people shout on a special holy day.
⁸ The Lord decided to destroy the strong walls of Zion.
He carefully broke away each stone.
It causes us to weep when we look at those walls.
He destroyed them all.
He destroyed the inside walls and he destroyed the strong outside walls.
⁹ Zion's gates fell down on the ground.
He destroyed them and he has broken them in pieces.
The enemies have taken away our king
and his sons to a foreign country.
The people no longer understand God's Law.^[f]
The Lord does not give messages to his prophets any more.
¹⁰ Zion's leaders sit on the ground and they are saying nothing.
They have dressed themselves in sackcloth
and they throw dirt on their own heads.^[g]
They are showing everyone that they are very sad.
The young women of Jerusalem can only look down to the ground,
because they are very sad too.
¹¹ I have cried so much that my eyes are red now.
Even the parts inside my body hurt,
because my people are dying.
I feel ill because I am so sad.
The children and babies fall in the city's streets
because they are so weak.
¹² ‘Where has all the food and drink gone?’
the hungry children ask their mothers.
Then they fall down in pain on the streets of the city.
They die in their mothers' arms.