Lamentations 2:5-9
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
5 The Lord has become the enemy,
he has devoured Israel:
Devoured all its strongholds,
destroyed its defenses,
Multiplied moaning and groaning
throughout daughter Judah.
6 He laid waste his booth like a garden,
destroyed his shrine;[a]
The Lord has blotted out in Zion
feast day and sabbath,
Has scorned in fierce wrath
king and priest.(A)
7 The Lord has rejected his altar,
spurned his sanctuary;
He has handed over to the enemy
the walls of its strongholds.
They shout in the house of the Lord
as on a feast day.(B)
8 The Lord was bent on destroying
the wall of daughter Zion:
He stretched out the measuring line;[b]
did not hesitate to devour,
Brought grief on rampart and wall
till both succumbed.(C)
9 Her gates sank into the ground;
he smashed her bars to bits.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
instruction is wanting,
Even her prophets do not obtain
any vision from the Lord.(D)
Footnotes
- 2:6 Booth…shrine: synonyms for the Temple; cf. Ps 27:5; 74:4, 8. The term for “shrine” in Hebrew (mo‘ed) figures prominently in the pentateuchal expression “tent of meeting” (’ohel mo‘ed).
- 2:8 The measuring line: normally used for building, here employed ironically as an instrument of destruction; cf. Is 34:11; 2 Kgs 21:13.
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