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20 “Look, O Lord, and pay attention:
    to whom have you been so ruthless?
Must women eat their own offspring,[a]
    the very children they have borne?
Are priest and prophet to be slain
    in the sanctuary of the Lord?(A)

21 They lie on the ground in the streets,
    young and old alike;
Both my young women and young men
    are cut down by the sword;
You killed them on the day of your wrath,
    slaughtered without pity.(B)

22 You summoned as to a feast day
    terrors on every side;
On the day of the Lord’s wrath,
    none survived or escaped.
Those I have borne and nurtured,
    my enemy has utterly destroyed.”(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 2:20 Must women eat their own offspring: extreme famine in a besieged city sometimes led to cannibalism; this becomes a stereotypical way of expressing the nearly unthinkable horrors of war; cf. Lam 4:10; Dt 28:53; 2 Kgs 6:28–29; Bar 2:3; Ez 5:10.

20 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?

21 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.

22 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.

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