← Lamentations
- A. 8 The LORD determined to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withdraw His hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls lament; together they waste away.
- B. 9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and shattered their bars. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and even her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
- C. 10 The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
- D. 11 My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
- D'. 12 They cry out to their mothers: "Where is the grain and wine?" as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers.
- C'. 13 What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you?
- B'. 14-16 The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading. All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: "Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?" All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, "We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!"
- A'. 17 The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.