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God's Anger over Israel

¹ How the Lord has ^(C1)covered the daughter of Zion
With a cloud in His anger!
He has ^(C2)cast from heaven to earth
The ^(C3)glory 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 habitations of Jacob.
In His wrath He has ^(C2)thrown down
The strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
He has ^(C3)brought them down to the ground;
He has ^(C4)profaned the kingdom and its princes.

³ In fierce anger He has cut off
^(F1)All the ^(C1)strength of Israel;
He has ^(C2)drawn back His right hand
From before the enemy.
And He has ^(C3)burned in Jacob like a flaming fire
Consuming round about.

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)pleasant 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 moaning.

⁶ And He has violently treated His ^(F1)tabernacle like a garden booth;
He has ^(C1)destroyed His appointed ^(F2)meeting place.
The LORD has ^(C2)caused to be forgotten
The appointed feast and sabbath in Zion,
And He has ^(C3)despised king and priest
In the indignation of His anger.

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

⁸ The LORD ^(F1)determined to destroy
The wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has ^(C1)stretched out a line,
He has not restrained His hand from ^(F2)destroying,
And He has ^(C2)caused rampart and wall to lament;
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 among the nations;
The ^(C2)law is no more.
Also, her prophets find
^(C3)No vision from the LORD.

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

¹¹ My ^(C1)eyes fail because of tears,
My ^(F1)(C2)spirit is greatly troubled;
My ^(F2)(C3)heart is poured out on the earth
^(C4)Because of the ^(F3)destruction of the daughter of my people,
When ^(C5)little ones and infants faint
In the streets of the city.

¹² They say 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 is poured out
On their mothers' bosom.

¹³ How shall I admonish you?
To what ^(C1)shall I compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what shall I liken you as I comfort you,
O ^(C2)virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ^(F1)ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can ^(C3)heal you?

¹⁴ Your ^(C1)prophets have seen for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not ^(C2)exposed your iniquity
So as to restore you from captivity,
But they have ^(C3)seen for you false and misleading ^(F1)oracles.

¹⁵ All who pass along the way
^(C1)Clap their hands in derision at you;
They ^(C2)hiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem,
"Is this the city of which they said,
'^(C3)The perfection of beauty,
^(C4)A joy to all the earth'?"

¹⁶ All ^(C1)your enemies
Have opened their mouths wide against you;
They hiss and ^(C2)gnash their teeth.
They say, "We have ^(C3)swallowed her up!
Surely 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 purposed;
He has accomplished His word
Which He commanded from days of old.
He has thrown down ^(C2)without sparing,
And He has caused the enemy to ^(C3)rejoice over you;
He has ^(C4)exalted the ^(F1)might of your adversaries.

¹⁸ Their ^(C1)heart 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 ^(F1)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 because of hunger
At the head of every street."

²⁰ See, O LORD, and look!
With ^(C1)whom have You dealt thus?
Should women ^(C2)eat their ^(F1)offspring,
The little ones who were ^(F2)born healthy?
Should ^(C3)priest and prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?

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

²² You called as in the day of an appointed feast
My ^(C1)terrors on every side;
And there was ^(C2)no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the LORD'S anger.
Those ^(C3)whom I ^(F1)bore and reared,
My enemy annihilated them.