1How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He cast down the beauty of Israel from the heavens to the earth and remembered not His footstool in the day of His anger. 2The Lord has swallowed up all the dwelling places of Jacob and has not pitied. In His wrath He has thrown down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground. He has defiled the kingdom and its rulers. 3He has cut off all the horn of Israel in His fierce anger; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy, and He burned against Jacob like flaming fire which devours all around. 4He has bent His bow like an enemy; He stood with His right hand like an adversary, and killed all who were desirable to the eye in the tent of the daughter of Zion. He has poured out His fury like fire. 5The Lord was like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, and destroyed His strongholds. And He has increased mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah. 6And He has done violence to His pavilion like it were a garden, and has destroyed His meeting places. Jehovah has caused the appointed meetings and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and He has despised the king and the priest in the indignation of His anger. 7The Lord has cast off His altar; He has abhorred His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a sound in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of the appointed meetings. 8Jehovah has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from devouring, and He made rampart and wall lament; they languish together. 9Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her rulers are among the nations. The law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from Jehovah. 10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and are silent; they throw dust on their heads; they gird on sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. 11My eyes fail with tears; my stomach is upset; my liver is poured on the ground for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the babies faint in the streets of the city. 12They say to their mothers, Where are grain and wine? When they faint they are like the wounded in the streets of the city, pouring out their lives into their mothers’ bosoms. 13What can I testify for you? To what thing shall I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what shall I equal you, so that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your break is great like the sea! Who can heal you? 14Your prophets have seen vain and foolish things for you, and they have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captives; but they have seen false utterances and causes of banishment for you. 15All who pass by clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city which is called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? 16All your enemies have opened their mouth against you; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we waited for. We have found it, we have seen it. 17Jehovah has done what He had purposed; He has fulfilled His Word which He commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down and not pitied. And He has caused your enemy to rejoice over you; He has set up the horn of your foes. 18Their heart cried unto the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give yourself no rest. Let not the daughter of your eye be silent. 19Arise, cry out in the night. At the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward Him for the life of your children who faint from hunger at the head of every street. 20Behold, O Jehovah, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their offspring, children of their tender care? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered and not pitied. 22You have summoned, as in an appointed day, my terrors all around; and there was not one who escaped, or a survivor in the day of Jehovah’s anger. Those whom I have nursed and nurtured, my enemy has consumed.