Lamentations 2:1-11

How the Lord has overshadowed Daughter Zion with his anger! He has thrown down Israel’s glory from heaven to earth. He did not acknowledge his footstool  in the day of his anger.  Without compassion  the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In his wrath he has demolished the fortified cities  of Daughter Judah. He brought them to the ground and defiled the kingdom and its leaders.  He has cut off every horn  of Israel in his burning anger and withdrawn his right hand  in the presence of the enemy. He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything.  He has strung his bow like an enemy;  his right hand is positioned like an adversary. He has killed everyone who was the delight to the eye,  pouring out his wrath like fire on the tent of Daughter Zion. The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all its palaces and destroyed its fortified cities. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation within Daughter Judah.  He has wrecked his temple  as if it were merely a shack in a field,  destroying his place of meeting.  The Lord has abolished appointed festivals and Sabbaths in Zion. He has despised king and priest in his fierce anger. The Lord has rejected his altar, repudiated his sanctuary;  he has handed the walls of her palaces over to the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the  Lord as on the day of an appointed festival. The Lord determined to destroy the wall of Daughter Zion. He stretched out a measuring line  and did not restrain himself from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls grieve; together they waste away. Zion’s gates have fallen to the ground;  he has destroyed and shattered the bars on her gates. Her king and her leaders live among the nations, instruction  is no more, and even her prophets receive no vision from the  Lord.  The elders of Daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads  and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.  My eyes are worn out from weeping;  I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief  , because of the destruction of my dear people,  because infants and nursing babies faint in the streets of the city.