1How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has thrown down the beauty of Israel from heaven to the earth. In the day of his anger he did not remember his footstool.
2The Lord has swallowed up all the homes of Jacob, and has shown no pity. In his wrath he has torn down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has made the kingdom and its princes unclean.
3In his fierce anger he has cut off all the horn of Israel. He has drawn back his right hand when the enemy came. He burned against Jacob like a flaming fire that eats up everything around it.
4He has bent his bow like an enemy. He stood with his right hand raised like a foe. He killed all who were pleasant to the eye in the tent of the daughter of Zion. He poured out his fury like fire.
5The Lord was like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds, and has made mourning and weeping grow in the daughter of Judah.
6He has torn away his tent with violence, as if it were a garden shelter. He has destroyed the places of his assembly. The LORD has made the solemn feasts and sabbaths be forgotten in Zion. In the heat of his anger he has despised the king and the priest.
7The Lord has cast off his altar. He has turned away from his sanctuary. He has handed the walls of her palaces over to the enemy. They shouted in the house of the LORD as on the day of a solemn feast.
8The LORD planned to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He stretched out the measuring line. He did not hold back his hand from destroying. So he made the outer wall and the wall mourn; together they waste away.
9Her gates have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations. The law is gone. Her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.
10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground and keep silent. They have thrown dust on their heads. They have put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem hang their heads to the ground.
11My eyes are worn out with tears. I am troubled deep inside. My heart is poured out on the ground, because my people, the daughter of my people, are destroyed. The children and the babies faint in the streets of the city.
12They say to their mothers, "Where is corn and wine?" as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers' laps.
13What can I say for you? What can I compare you to, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I match with you, so that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? Your wound is as wide as the sea. Who can heal you?
14Your prophets have seen empty and foolish visions for you. They did not uncover your guilt, to turn back your captivity. Instead they have seen for you false messages that led you away.
15All who pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, "Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?"
16All your enemies have opened their mouths against you. They hiss and grind their teeth. They say, "We have swallowed her up. Surely this is the day we waited for. We have found it, we have seen it."
17The LORD has done what he planned. He has carried out his word that he commanded long ago. He has thrown down and shown no pity. He has let your enemy rejoice over you. He has raised up the horn of your foes.
18Their heart cried out to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no rest. Let your eyes have no relief.
19Get up, cry out in the night. At the beginning of the night watches pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the life of your young children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.
20Look, O LORD, and consider whom you have done this to. Should women eat their own children, the little ones they have cared for? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets. My young women and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered them and shown no pity.
22You have called my terrors from every side, as if to a feast day. In the day of the LORD's anger no one escaped or was left. Those I cared for and brought up, my enemy has destroyed.