Lamentations - Chapter 2 | King James Version (KJV)

  • 1. How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, {cf15I and} cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
  • 2. The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought {cf15I them} down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.
  • 3. He hath cut off in {cf15I his} fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, {cf15I which} devoureth round about.
  • 4. He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all {cf15I that were} pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.
  • 5. The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
  • 6. And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as {cf15I if it were of} a garden: 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.
  • 7. The Lord hath cast off his altar, 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.
  • 8. The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
  • 9. Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes {cf15I are} among the Gentiles: the law {cf15I is} no {cf15I more}; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.
  • 10. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, {cf15I and} keep silence: 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.
  • 11. Mine eyes do fail with tears, 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.
  • 12. They say to their mothers, Where {cf15I is} corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.
  • 13. What thing shall I take to witness for thee? 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 {cf15I is} great like the sea: who can heal thee?
  • 14. Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
  • 15. All that pass by clap {cf15I their} hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, {cf15I saying, Is} this the city that {cf15I men} call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
  • 16. All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed {cf15I her} up: certainly this {cf15I is} the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen {cf15I it}.
  • 17. The LORD hath done {cf15I that} which he had devised; 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 {cf15I thine} enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
  • 18. Their heart cried unto the Lord, 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.
  • 19. Arise, cry out in the night: 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.
  • 20. Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, {cf15I 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 {cf15I them} in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, {cf15I and} not pitied.
  • 22. Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, 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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