Lamentations 2
Zion's Sorrows Come
from the LORD |
1 |
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of
Zion with a cloud in his anger,
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and cast down from heaven unto the earth the
beauty of Israel, |
and remembered not his footstool in the day of his
anger! |
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2 |
The Lord hath swallowed up all the
habitations of Jacob,
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and hath not pitied: |
he hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of
the daughter of Judah; |
he hath brought them down to the
ground: |
he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes
thereof. |
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3 |
He hath cut off in his fierce
anger all the horn of Israel:
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he hath drawn back his right hand from before the
enemy, |
and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round
about. |
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4 |
He hath bent his bow like an enemy:
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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. |
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5 |
The Lord was as an enemy:
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he hath swallowed up Israel, |
he hath swallowed up all her palaces: |
he hath destroyed his strongholds, |
and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning
and
lamentation. |
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6 |
And he hath violently taken away his
tabernacle, as if it were of a garden;
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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. |
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7 |
The Lord hath cast off his altar,
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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. |
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8 |
The LORD hath
purposed to destroy
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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. |
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9 |
Her gates are sunk into the ground;
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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. |
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10 |
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit
upon the ground, and keep silence:
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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. |
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11 |
Mine eyes do fail with tears,
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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. |
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12 |
They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
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when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of
the city, |
when their soul was poured out into their mothers'
bosom. |
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13 |
What thing shall I take to witness for
thee?
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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? |
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14 |
Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish
things for thee:
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and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn
away thy captivity; |
but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of
banishment. |
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15 |
All that pass by clap their hands
at thee;
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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? |
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16 |
All thine enemies have opened their mouth
against thee:
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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. |
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17 |
The LORD hath done that which he had devised;
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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. |
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18 |
Their heart cried unto the Lord,
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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. |
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19 |
Arise, cry out in the night:
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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. |
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20 |
Behold, O LORD, and
consider to whom thou hast done this.
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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? |
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21 |
The young and the old lie on the ground
in the streets:
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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. |
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22 |
Thou hast called as in a solemn day my
terrors round about,
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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. |
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