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Lamentations (continued)
2:1 How hath the LORD covered the daughter of Zion
with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto
the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his
footstool in the day of his anger!
2:2 The LORD hath swallowed up all the habitations of
Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath
the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought
them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and
the princes thereof.
2:3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of
Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the
enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire,
which devoureth round about.
2:4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his
right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant
to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he
poured out his fury like fire.
2:5 The LORD was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel,
he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his
strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.
2:6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if
it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the
assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and
sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the
indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
2:7 The LORD hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his
sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the
walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of
the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.
2:8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the
daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not
withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the
rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
2:9 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; her prophets also find no
vision from the LORD.
2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the
ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their
heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the
virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled,
my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of
the daughter of my people; because the children and the
sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
2:12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?
when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city,
when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.
2:13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what
thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what
shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin
daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who
can heal thee?
2:14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for
thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn
away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and
causes of banishment.
2:15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss
and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is
this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The
joy of the whole earth?
2:16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against
thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have
swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked
for; we have found, we have seen it.
2:17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath
fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old:
he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused
thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of
thine adversaries.
2:18 Their heart cried unto the LORD, O wall of the
daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and
night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye
cease.
2:19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the
watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of
the LORD: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy
young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every
street.
2:20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done
this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a
span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the
sanctuary of the Lord?
2:21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the
streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the
sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou
hast killed, and not pitied.
2:22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round
about, so that in the day of the LORD's anger none escaped
nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath
mine enemy consumed. |
Cults 
Why Did God Permit Sin?
