God’s Anger over Jerusalem

1How† the Lord has covered with His nose

the daughter of Zion!

He has cast from the heavens to the earth

the beauty of Israel,

and He did not remember the stool for His feet

on the day of His anger!

2The Lord has swallowed up and He has not pitied

all the dwelling places of Jacob;

He has thrown down in His wrath

the fortifications of the daughter of Judah;

He has made them touch to the ground;

He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

3He has cut off in the burning of His anger

every horn† of Israel;

He has turned back His right hand

from before the enemy,

and He has blazed against Jacob like a fire of flame,

devouring all around!

4He has bent His bow like an enemy,

standing with His right hand like an adversary,

and He has slain

all those desirable to His eye;

on the tent of the daughter of Zion,

He has poured out His fury like fire.

5The Lord has been like an enemy!

He has swallowed up Israel,

has swallowed up all her palaces;

He has destroyed her strongholds,

and He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah

mourning and lamentation.

6He has treated violently His booth as a garden;

He has destroyed His appointed place;

YHWH has caused to be forgotten in Zion

the appointed feast and Sabbath,

and He has spurned in the rage of His anger

king and priest!

7The Lord has rejected His altar;

He has disowned His sanctuary;

He has shut up in the hand of the enemy

the walls of her palaces;

a voice they have given forth in the house of YHWH

as on the day of the appointed feast.

8YHWH has purposed to destroy

the wall of the daughter of Zion;

He has stretched out a line;

He has not turned back His hand from destroying;

the rampart and wall He has caused to lament,

and together they have languished.

9Her gates have sunk into the ground;

He has destroyed and broken her bars;

her king and her princes are among the nations;

the law is no more,

and her prophets cannot find

vision from YHWH.

10They sit on the ground and are silent—

the elders of the daughter of Zion;

they have thrown up dust on their heads,

they have girded themselves with sackcloth;

they have bowed their heads to the ground,

the virgins of Jerusalem.

11My eyes end in tears,

my bowels are troubled;

my liver is poured to the ground

over the destruction of the daughter of my people,

at the fainting of the infants and sucklings

in the streets of the city!

12To their mothers they say,

“Where is the grain and wine?”

In their becoming feeble like a wounded one

in the streets of the city,

in the pouring out their soul

into the bosom of their mothers.

13What can I say about you;

to what shall I liken you,

O daughter of Jerusalem?

What shall I compare to you

that I might comfort you,

O virgin daughter of Zion?

For your brokenness is as great as the sea—

who can bring healing to you?

14Your prophets have seen for you

emptiness and foolish things,

and they have not uncovered about your iniquity,

to turn back your captivity,

and they have seen for you

burdens of emptiness and enticements.

15They clap the hands at you

all those passing by on the way;

they hiss and shake their heads

over the daughter of Jerusalem:

“Is this the city that they called

the fullness of beauty,

the joy of all the earth?”

16They have opened their mouth against you—

all your enemies;

they hiss and gnash the teeth;

they say: “We have swallowed her up!

Surely this is the day we have awaited—

we have found it, we have seen!”

17YHWH has done what He planned,

and has fulfilled His word,

which He commanded from days before;

He has overthrown, and He has not spared;

the enemy He has made glad over you,

and He has raised high the horn† of your adversaries.

18Their heart has cried out

to the Lord!

O wall of the daughter of Zion,

let your tears run down like a torrent

day and night;

do not give ceasing to yourself,

do not give rest to the daughter of your eye!

19Arise, cry out in the night,

at the beginning of the watches!†

Pour out your heart like waters

before the face of the Lord!

Lift up toward Him your hands

over the soul of your infants,

those weakened by hunger

in the head of every street!

20See, O YHWH, and consider!

To whom have You dealt this way?

Shall women eat their own fruit,

the infants of the tender care?

Shall he be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord—

priest and prophet?

21They lie on the ground in the streets

young and old;

my maidens and my young men

have fallen by the sword;

You have slain them in the day of Your anger!

You have slaughtered and not spared!

22You have called, as on the day of an appointed feast,

my terrors from around;

he did not escape on the day of the anger of YHWH—

escapee or survivor!

Those whom I have held and brought up,

my enemy has consumed them.