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Lamentations 2

1.How hath the Lord adarkened the daughter of Zión in his wrath! and hath cast down from bheaven unto the earth the beauty of Israél, and remembered not his cfoot stool in the day of his wrath!
2.The Lord hath destroyed all the habitations of Jaakób, and not spared: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judáh: he hath cast them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
3.He hath cut off in his fierce wrath all the dhorn of Israél: he hath drawn back his eright hand from before the enemy, and there was kindled in Jaakób like a flame of fire, which devoured round about.
4.He fhath bent his bow like an enemy: his right hand was stretched up as an adversary, and slew all that was pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zión: he poured out his wrath like fire.
5.The Lord was as an enemy: he hath devoured Israél, and consumed all his palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, & hath increased in the daughter of Judáh lamentacion and mourning.
6.For he hath destroyed his tabernacle, as a garden, he hath destroyed his congregation: the Lord hath caused the feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zión, and hath despised in the indignation of his wrath the King and the Priest.
7.The Lord hath forsaken his altar: he hath abhorred his Santuary, he hath given into the hand of the enemy the wallls of her palaces: they have made a gnoise in the House of the Lord, as in the day of solemnity.
8.The Lord hath determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zión: he stretched out a line: he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart hand the wall to lament: they were destroyed together.
9.Her gates are sunk to the ground: he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her King and her princes are among the Gentiles: the Law is no more, neither can her Prophets ^receive any vision from the Lord.
10.The Elders of the daughter of Zión sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads: they have girded them selves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalém hang down their heads to the ground.
11.Mine eyes do fail with tears: my bowels swell: my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and sucklings ^swoon in the streets of the city.
12.They have said to their mothers, Where is ^bread and drink? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, and when they ^gave up the ghost in their mother’s bosom
13.iWhat thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I compare to thee, ô daughter Jerusalém: what shall I liken to thee, that I may comfort thee, ô virgin daughter Zión? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14.Thy Prophets have klooked out vain, and foolish things for thee, and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity, but have looked out for thee false ^prophecies, and causes of banishment.
15.All that pass by the way, clap their hands at thee: they hiss and wag their head upon the daughter Jerusalém, saying, Is this the city that men call, The perfection of beauty, and the joy of the whole earth?
16.All thine enemies have opened their mouths against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth, saying, Let us devour it: certainly this is the day that we looked for: we have found and seen it.
17.*The Lord hath done that which he had purposed: he hath fulfilled his word that he had determined of old time: he hath thrown down, and not spared: he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, and set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18.Their heart *cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter Zión, let tears run down like a river, day and night: take thee no rest, neither let the apple of thine eye cease.
19.Arise, cry in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thine hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the corners of all the streets.
20.Behold, ô Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done thus? 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 thy wrath: thou hast killed & not spared.
22.Thou hast called as in a solemn day my ^terrors round about, so that in the day of the Lord’s wrath none escaped nor remained: those that I have nourished and brought up, hath mine enemy consumed.

Notes

1-a.
That is, brought her from prosperity to adversity.
1-b.
Has given her a most sore fall.
1-c.
Alluding to the Temple or to the Arke of the covenant, which was called the footstool of the Lord because they should not set their minds so low, but lift up their hearts toward the heavens.
3-d.
Meaning, the glory and strength, and 1 Sam. 2.1.
3-e.
That is, his succour which he was wont to send us, when our enemies oppressed us.
4-f.
Showing, that there is no remedy but destruction, where God is the enemy.
7-g.
As the people were accustomed to praise God in the solemn feasts with a loud voice, so now the enemies blaspheme him with shouting and crying.
8-h.
This is a figurative speech, as that was , when he said, the ways did lament, Ch. 1.4: meaning, that this sorrow was so great that the insensible things had their part thereof.
9-^.
Or, find.
11-^.
Or, faint.
12-^.
Ebr., wheat and wine.
12-^-1.
Ebr., poured out the soul.
13-i.
Meaning, that her calamity was so evident that it need no witnesses.
14-^.
Or, burdens.
14-k.
Because the false Prophets called themselves seers, as the other were called, therefore he shows that they saw amiss, because they did not reprove the people’s fautes, but flattered them in their sins, which was the cause of their destruction.
17-*.
Lev. 26.14, Deu. 28.25.
18-*.
Jer. 14.17, ch. 1.16.
20-^.
Or, brought up in their own hands.
22-^.
Or, enemies, whom I feared.