2:1. Aleph. How hath the Lord covered with obscurity the daughter of
Sion in his wrath! how hath he cast down from heaven to the earth the
glorious one of Israel, and hath not remembered his footstool in the
day of his anger.
2:2. Beth. The Lord hath cast down headlong, and hath not spared, all
that was beautiful in Jacob: he hath destroyed in his wrath the strong
holds of the virgin of Juda, and brought them down to the ground: he
hath made the kingdom unclean, and the princes thereof.
2:3. Ghimel. He hath broken in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel:
he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: and he hath
kindled in Jacob as it were a flaming fire devouring round about.
2:4. Daleth. He hath bent his bow as an enemy, he hath fixed his right
hand as an adversary: and he hath killed all that was fair to behold in
the tabernacle of the daughter of Sion, he hath poured out his
indignation like fire.
2:5. He. The Lord is become as an enemy: he hath cast down Israel
headlong, he hath overthrown all the walls thereof: he hath destroyed
his strong holds, and hath multiplied in the daughter of Juda the
afflicted, both men and women.
2:6. Vau. And he hath destroyed his tent as a garden, he hath thrown
down his tabernacle: the Lord hath caused feasts and sabbaths to be
forgotten in Sion: and hath delivered up king and priest to reproach,
and to the indignation of his wrath.
2:7. Zain. The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath cursed his
sanctuary: he hath delivered the walls of the towers thereof into the
hand of the enemy: they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as
in the day of a solemn feast.
He hath cursed his sanctuary. . .That is, he permitted his sanctuary to
be destroyed, as if it had not been consecrated, but execrable.
2:8. Heth. The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter
of Sion: he hath stretched out his line, and hath not withdrawn his
hand from destroying: and the bulwark hath mourned, and the wall hath
been destroyed together.
2:9. Teth. Her gates are sunk into the ground: he hath destroyed, and
broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the
law is no more, and her prophets have found no vision from the Lord.
2:10. Jod. The ancients of the daughter of Sion sit upon the ground,
they have held their peace: they have sprinkled their heads with dust,
they are girded with haircloth, the virgins of Jerusalem hang down
their heads to the ground.
2:11. Caph. My eyes have failed with weeping, my bowels are troubled:
my liver is poured out upon the earth, for the destruction of the
daughter of my people, when the children, and the sucklings, fainted
away in the streets of the city.
2:12. Lamed. They said to their mothers: Where is corn and wine? when
they fainted away as the wounded in the streets of the city: when they
breathed out their souls in the bosoms of their mothers.
2:13. Mem. To what shall I compare thee? or to what shall I liken thee,
O daughter of Jerusalem? to what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort
thee, O virgin daughter of Sion? for great as the sea is thy
destruction: who shall heal thee?
2:14. Nun. Thy prophets have seen false and foolish things for thee:
and they have not laid open thy iniquity, to excite thee to penance:
but they have seen for thee false revelations and banishments.
2:15. Samech. All they that passed by the way have clapped their hands
at thee: they have hissed, and wagged their heads at the daughter of
Jerusalem, saying: Is this the city of perfect beauty, the joy of all
the earth?
2:16. Phe. All thy enemies have opened their month against thee: they
have hissed, and gnashed with the teeth, and have said: We will swallow
her up: lo, this is the day which we looked for: we have found it, we
have seen it.
2:17. Ain. The Lord hath done that which he purposed, he hath fulfilled
his word, which he commanded in the days of old: he hath destroyed, and
hath not spared, and he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee, and
hath set up the horn of thy adversaries.
2:18. Sade. Their heart cried to the Lord upon the walls of the
daughter of Sion: Let tears run down like a torrent day and night: give
thyself no rest, and let not the apple of thy eye cease.
2:19. Coph. Arise, give praise in the night, in the beginning of the
watches: pour out thy heart like water, before the face of the Lord:
lift up thy hands to him for the life of thy little children, that have
fainted for hunger at the top of all the streets.
2:20. Res. Behold, O Lord, and consider whom thou hast thus dealt with:
shall women then eat their own fruit, their children of a span long?
shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
2:21. Sin. The child and the old man lie without on the ground: my
virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: thou hast slain them
in the day of thy wrath: thou hast killed, and shewn them no pity.
2:22. Thau. Thou hast called as to a festival, those that should
terrify me round about, and there was none in the day of the wrath of
the Lord that escaped and was left: those that I brought up, and
nourished, my enemy hath consumed them.