Lamentations:1-2

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* How doth the city sit solitary , that was full of people ! how is she become as a widow ! she that was great among the nations , and princess among the provinces , how is she become tributary ! * She weepeth sore in the night , and her tears are on her cheeks : among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her : all her friends have dealt treacherously with her , they are become her enemies . * Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction , and because of great servitude : she dwelleth among the heathen , she findeth no rest : all her persecutors overtook her between the straits . * The ways of Zion do mourn , because none come to the solemn feasts : all her gates are desolate : her priests sigh , her virgins are afflicted , and she is in bitterness . * Her adversaries are the chief , her enemies prosper ; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions : her children are gone into captivity before the enemy . * And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed : her princes are become like harts that find no pasture , and they are gone without strength before the pursuer . * Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old , when her people fell into the hand of the enemy , and none did help her : the adversaries saw her , and did mock at her sabbaths . * Jerusalem hath grievously sinned ; therefore she is removed : all that honoured her despise her , because they have seen her nakedness : yea , she sigheth , and turneth backward . * Her filthiness is in her skirts ; she remembereth not her last end ; therefore she came down wonderfully : she had no comforter . O LORD , behold my affliction : for the enemy hath magnified himself . * The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things : for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary , whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation . * All her people sigh , they seek bread ; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul : see , O LORD , and consider ; for I am become vile . * Is it nothing to you , all ye that pass by ? behold , and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow , which is done unto me , wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger . * From above hath he sent fire into my bones , and it prevaileth against them : he hath spread a net for my feet , he hath turned me back : he hath made me desolate and faint all the day . * The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand : they are wreathed , and come up upon my neck : he hath made my strength to fall , the Lord hath delivered me into their hands , from whom I am not able to rise up . * The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me : he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men : the Lord hath trodden the virgin , the daughter of Judah , as in a winepress . * For these things I weep ; mine eye , mine eye runneth down with water , because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me : my children are desolate , because the enemy prevailed . * Zion spreadeth forth her hands , and there is none to comfort her : the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob , that his adversaries should be round about him : Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them . * The LORD is righteous ; for I have rebelled against his commandment : hear , I pray you , all people , and behold my sorrow : my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity . * I called for my lovers , but they deceived me : my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city , while they sought their meat to relieve their souls . * Behold , O LORD ; for I am in distress : my bowels are troubled ; mine heart is turned within me ; for I have grievously rebelled : abroad the sword bereaveth , at home there is as death . * They have heard that I sigh : there is none to comfort me : all mine enemies have heard of my trouble ; they are glad that thou hast done it : thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called , and they shall be like unto me . * Let all their wickedness come before thee ; and do unto them , as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions : for my sighs are many , and my heart is faint . * 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 ! * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 ? * 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 . * 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 ? * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 . * 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 ? * 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 . * 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 . * I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath .

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