Lamentations

¹ How the Master has cut down Daughter Zion from the skies, dashed Israel's glorious city to earth, in his anger treated his favorite as throwaway junk.

² Raging, he smashed Judah's defenses, made hash of her king and princes.

³ broke Israel's arm and turned his back just as the enemy approached, came on Jacob like a wildfire from every direction.

⁴ and killed our young men, our pride and joy. His anger, like fire, burned down the homes in Zion.

⁵ He chewed up and spit out all the defenses. He left Daughter Judah moaning and groaning.

⁶ God wiped out Zion's memories of feast days and Sabbaths, angrily sacked king and priest alike.

⁷ and turned the fortifications over to the enemy. As they cheered in God's Temple, you'd have thought it was a feast day!

⁸ He assembled his crew, set to work and went at it. Total demolition! The stones wept!

⁹ her kings and princes off to exile—no one left to instruct or lead; her prophets useless—they neither saw nor heard anything from God.

¹⁰ They throw dust on their heads, dress in rough penitential burlap— the young virgins of Jerusalem, their faces creased with the dirt.

¹¹ My insides have turned to jelly over my people's fate. Babies and children are fainting all over the place,

¹² then fainting like dying soldiers in the streets, breathing their last in their mothers' laps.

¹³ What can I say to give you comfort, dear Zion? Who can put you together again? This bust-up is past understanding.

¹⁴ They didn't face you with your sin so that you could repent. Their sermons were all wishful thinking, deceptive illusions.

¹⁵ They rub their eyes, they shake their heads over Jerusalem. Is this the city voted "Most Beautiful" and "Best Place to Live"?

¹⁶ Then they rub their hands in glee: "We've got them! We've been waiting for this! Here it is!"

¹⁷ He always said he'd do this. Now he's done it—torn the place down. He's let your enemies walk all over you, declared them world champions!

¹⁸ Let the tears roll like a river, day and night, and keep at it—no time-outs. Keep those tears flowing!

¹⁹ Pour your heart out face to face with the Master. Lift high your hands. Beg for the lives of your children who are starving to death out on the streets.

²⁰ Should women eat their own babies, the very children they raised? Should priests and prophets be murdered in the Master's own Sanctuary?

²¹ my young men and women killed in their prime. Angry, you killed them in cold blood, cut them down without mercy.

²² so that on the big day of God's wrath no one would get away. The children I loved and reared—gone, gone, gone."