God’s Anger with Jerusalem
How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
With a acloud in His anger!
bHe cast down from heaven to the earth
cThe beauty of Israel,
And did not remember dHis footstool
In the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up and has anot pitied
All the dwelling places of Jacob.
He has thrown down in His wrath
The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has brought them down to the ground;
bHe has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger
Every horn of Israel;
aHe has drawn back His right hand
From before the enemy.
bHe has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
Devouring all around.
4 aStanding like an enemy, He has bent His bow;
With His right hand, like an adversary,
He has slain ball who were pleasing to His eye;
On the tent of the daughter of Zion,
He has poured out His fury like fire.
5 aThe Lord was like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel,
He has swallowed up all her palaces;
bHe has destroyed her strongholds,
And has increased mourning and lamentation
In the daughter of Judah.
6 He has done violence ato His tabernacle,
bAs if it were a garden;
He has destroyed His place of assembly;
The Lord has caused
The appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion.
In His burning indignation He has cspurned the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has spurned His altar,
He has aabandoned His sanctuary;
He has given up the walls of her palaces
Into the hand of the enemy.
bThey have made a noise in the house of the Lord
As on the day of a set feast.
8 The Lord has purposed to destroy
The awall of the daughter of Zion.
bHe has stretched out a line;
He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying;
Therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament;
They languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed and abroken her bars.
bHer king and her princes are among the nations;
cThe Law is no more,
And her dprophets find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
aSit on the ground and keep silence;
They bthrow dust on their heads
And cgird themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
Bow their heads to the ground.
11 aMy eyes fail with tears,
My heart is troubled;
bMy bile is poured on the ground
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
Because cthe children and the infants
Faint in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they swoon like the wounded
In the streets of the city,
As their life is poured out
In their mothers’ bosom.
13 How shall I aconsole you?
To what shall I liken you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is spread wide as the sea;
Who can heal you?
14 Your aprophets have seen for you
False and deceptive visions;
They have not buncovered your iniquity,
To bring back your captives,
But have envisioned for you false cprophecies and delusions.
15 All who pass by aclap their hands at you;
They hiss band shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that is called
c‘The perfection of beauty,
The joy of the whole earth’?”
16 aAll your enemies have opened their mouth against you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, b“We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the cday we have waited for;
We have found it, dwe have seen it!”
17 The Lord has done what He apurposed;
He has fulfilled His word
Which He commanded in days of old.
He has thrown down and has not pitied,
And He has caused an enemy to brejoice over you;
He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord,
“O wall of the daughter of Zion,
aLet tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief;
Give your eyes no rest.
19 “Arise, acry out in the night,
At the beginning of the watches;
bPour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.
Lift your hands toward Him
For the life of your young children,
Who faint from hunger cat the head of every street.”
20 “See, O Lord, and consider!
To whom have You done this?
aShould the women eat their offspring,
The children they have cuddled?
Should the priest and prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 “Younga and old lie
On the ground in the streets;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the bsword;
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered and not pitied.
22 “You have invited as to a feast day
aThe terrors that surround me.
In the day of the Lord’s anger
There was no refugee or survivor.
bThose whom I have borne and brought up
My enemies have cdestroyed.”
The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved.