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God's Anger over Israel

¹ How the Lord has ^(C1)covered the Daughter of Zion (Jerusalem)
With a cloud in His anger!
He has ^(C2)cast down from heaven to the earth
The ^(C3)glory and splendor of Israel
And has not remembered His ^(C4)footstool
In the day of His anger.

² The Lord has ^(C1)swallowed up; He has not spared
All the country places of Jacob.
In His wrath He has ^(C2)thrown down
The strongholds of the Daughter of Judah (Jerusalem).
He has ^(C3)brought them down to the ground in disgrace;
He has ^(C4)debased the kingdom and its princes.

³ In fierce anger He has cut off and destroyed
Every ^(F1)(C1)horn of Israel.
He has ^(C2)withdrawn His right hand
From the presence of the enemy.
And He has ^(C3)burned in Jacob like a flaming fire
Consuming all around.

⁴ He has bent His ^(C1)bow like an enemy;
He has set His right hand like an adversary
And slain all that were ^(C2)delightful and pleasing to the eye;
In the tent of the Daughter of Zion
He has ^(C3)poured out His wrath like fire.

⁵ The Lord has become like an ^(C1)enemy;
He has ^(C2)swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all its ^(C3)palaces;
He has destroyed its strongholds
And ^(C4)multiplied in the Daughter of Judah
Mourning and lamentation (expressions of grief).

⁶ And He has violently broken down His temple like a fragile garden hedge;
He has ^(C1)destroyed His appointed meeting place.
The LORD has ^(C2)caused the appointed feast and Sabbath
To be forgotten in Zion
And has ^(C3)despised and rejected the king and the priest
In the indignation of His anger.

⁷ The Lord has ^(C1)rejected His altar;
He has abandoned His sanctuary.
He ^(C2)has given into the hand of the enemy
The walls of her palaces;
They have made a ^(C3)noise in the house of the LORD
As on a day of an appointed feast.

⁸ The LORD determined to lay in ruins
The city wall of the Daughter of Zion.
He has ^(C1)stretched out a line,
He has not stopped His hand from destroying.
He ^(C2)has caused the rampart and the wall to lament (mourn in grief);
They have languished together.

⁹ Her ^(C1)gates have sunk into the ground;
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations;
The ^(C2)law is no more.
Also, her prophets no longer find
^(C3)Vision from the LORD.

¹⁰ The elders of the Daughter of Zion
^(C1)Sit on the ground ^(C2)keeping silent;
They have thrown ^(C3)dust on their heads,
They have covered themselves with ^(C4)sackcloth.
The ^(C5)virgins of Jerusalem
Have bowed their heads to the ground.

¹¹ My ^(C1)eyes fail because of tears mourns Jeremiah,
My ^(C2)spirit is deeply disturbed;
My ^(C3)heart is poured out on the earth in grief
^(C4)Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people Jerusalem,
When ^(C5)little ones and infants faint
In the streets of the city.

¹² They cry to their mothers,
"^(C1)Where is grain and wine?"
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their ^(C2)life slips away and is poured out
In their mothers' arms.

¹³ How shall I console you?
To what ^(C1)shall I compare you,
O Daughter of Jerusalem?
With what shall I compare you, so that I may comfort you,
O ^(C2)Virgin Daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can ^(C3)heal you? ^(VR1)

¹⁴ Your ^(C1)prophets have seen (imagined) for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not ^(C2)exposed your wickedness
To restore you from captivity by teaching you to repent,
But they have ^(C3)seen (imagined) and declared to you false and misleading oracles.

¹⁵ All who pass along the way
^(C1)Clap their hands in derision at you;
They ^(C2)scoff and shake their heads
At the Daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
"Is this the city that was called
'^(C3)The perfection of beauty,
The ^(C4)joy of all the earth'?"

¹⁶ All ^(C1)your enemies
Have opened their mouths wide against you;
They scornfully hiss and ^(C2)gnash their teeth.
They say, "We have ^(C3)swallowed her up!
Certainly this is the ^(C4)day for which we waited;
We have reached it, we have seen it!"

¹⁷ The LORD has ^(C1)done what He planned;
He has accomplished His word
Which He commanded ^(F1)from days of old.
He has demolished ^(C2)without sparing,
And He has caused the enemy to ^(C3)rejoice over you;
He has ^(C4)exalted the power of your enemies. ^(VR1)

¹⁸ Their ^(C1)hearts cried out to the Lord.
"O ^(C2)wall of the Daughter of Zion,
Let your ^(C3)tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief,
Let your eyes have no rest.

¹⁹ "Arise, cry aloud in the ^(C1)night,
At the beginning of the night watches;
^(C2)Pour out your heart like water
Before the presence of the Lord;
Lift up your hands to Him
For the ^(C3)life of your little ones
Who are ^(C4)faint from hunger
At the head of every street." ^(VR1)

²⁰ See, O LORD, and look!
With ^(C1)whom have You dealt this way?
Should women ^(C2)eat their offspring,
The little ones who were born healthy and beautiful?
Should ^(C3)priest and prophet be killed
In the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹ The ^(C1)young and the old
Lie on the ground in the streets;
My ^(C2)virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword.
You have killed them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered, ^(C3)not sparing.

²² You LORD called as in the day of an appointed feast
My ^(C1)terrors (dangers) on every side;
And there was ^(C2)no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the LORD'S anger.
^(C3)Those I have cared for and brought up with tenderness,
My enemy annihilated them.