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          DASV: Lamentations 2 [Alphabetic Acrostic]    

1 א How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion
           with a dark cloud in his anger!
      He has thrown down from heaven to the earth
           the beauty of Israel.
      He has not remembered his footstool
           in the day of his anger.
2 ב The Lord has swallowed up without mercy
           all the habitations of Jacob,
      He has torn down the strongholds
           of the daughter of Judah in his wrath.
      He has brought down to the ground,
           dishonoring the kingdom and its officials.
3 ג He has cut off in fierce anger
           all the might of Israel.
      He has drawn back his right hand
          precisely when the enemy attacked.
      He has burned up Jacob like a blazing fire
          that devours everything around it.
4 ד He has bent his bow like an enemy,
          with his right hand ready to shoot like a foe.
      He has slain all our impressive youth.
      In the tent of the daughter of Zion
          he has poured out his wrath like fire.
5 ה The Lord has become like an enemy,
          he has swallowed up Israel.
      He has swallowed up all her palaces;
          he has destroyed her strongholds.
      He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
          in the daughter of Judah.
6 ו He has violently destroyed his temple,
          like it was a mere garden hut.
      He has destroyed his place of sacred assembly.
      The LORD has abolished the festivals and Sabbath
          in Zion.
      He has despised in his fierce rage,
          the king and the priest.
7 ז The Lord has rejected his altar,
     he has despised his sanctuary.
      He has given up into the hands of the enemy
          the walls of her palaces.
      The foe has shouted in the house of the LORD,
          as if it were a festival day.
8 ח The LORD was determined to destroy
          the wall of the daughter of Zion.
      He stretched out the measuring line,
          he did not withdraw his hand from destroying it.
      He has made the rampart and wall lament;
          they both crumbled.
9 ט Her gates are driven into the ground;
          he has destroyed and broken the bars of her gates.
      Her king and officials are exiled among the nations.
      There is no more instruction;
           her prophets receive no vision from the LORD.
10 י The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground
          in silence.
      They have throw dust on their heads.
     They have clothed themselves with sackcloth.
      The young women of Jerusalem bow their heads
          down to the ground.
11 כ My eyes fail because of the tears,
          my stomach churns.
      My heart is poured out on the ground,
          because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
          because the young children and infants
           faint in the city streets.
12 ל They say to their mothers,
     "Where is bread and wine?"
           when they faint as the wounded
     in the city streets,
           as their life is fades away
     in their mothers' arms.
13 מ What can I tell you?
     To what can I compare you,
           O daughter of Jerusalem?
      What can I liken you to,
     so that I might comfort you,
           O virgin daughter of Zion?
      For your demise is as deep as the sea.
     Who can heal you?
14 נ Your prophets have seen
          false and foolish visions for you.
      They have not exposed your sin,
          to turn you from captivity,
           but have seen false and misleading oracles
          for you.
15 ס All who pass by
          clap their hands to mock you.
      They hiss and wag their head
          at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
      "Is this the city that people called
          'The perfection of beauty,
     The joy of the whole earth'?"
16 פ All your enemies gape at you.
     They hiss and gnash their teeth.
      They brag, "We have swallowed her up.
     We've waited a long time for this day.
     Now we have finally found it,
           we have actually gotten see it."
17 ע The LORD has done what he purposed;
     he has fulfilled his word that he commanded
           in the days of old.
      He has thrown down without mercy.
     He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you.
      He has strengthened the might of your foes.
18 צ Their 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 respite;
          let your eyes not rest.
19 ק Get 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 toward him
          for the life of your young children,
           who faint from hunger
          at the head of every street.
20 ר Look, O LORD, and think about it!
     Whom have you ever done this to!
      Should women eat their offspring,
          children whom they have cared for?
      Should the priest and the prophet
          be slain in the temple of the Lord?
21 ש The youth and the old man are strewn
          on the ground in the streets.
      My young women and men
          are killed by the sword.
      You have slain them
          in the day of your anger.
      You have slaughtered them
          without mercy.
22 ת You summoned my terrors on every side,
          as if it were a feast day.
      No one escaped or survived
          on the day of the LORD's anger.
     Those whom I cared for and brought up,
          my enemy has finished off.

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