Lamentations 1:8-10

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

⁸Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she has become an unclean thing and has been removed. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; yes, she herself groans and sighs and turns [her face] away.

⁹Her filthiness was in and on her skirts; she did not [seriously and earnestly] consider her final end. Therefore she has come down [from throne to slavery] singularly and astonishingly; she has no comforter. O Lord [cries Jerusalem], look at my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself [in triumph]!

¹⁰The adversary has spread out his hand upon all her precious and desirable things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary [of the temple]—^[a]when You commanded that they should not even enter Your congregation [in the outer courts].^(A)

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Footnotes

Lamentations 1:10 The Ammonites and Moabites, descendants of Lot and kinsmen of Israel, were forbidden to enter the congregation of the Lord, “even to their tenth generation,” because they refused assistance to the Israelites when they were fleeing from Egypt, and because they hired Balaam to curse Israel (Deut. 23:3, 4). The Israelites themselves never assembled any closer to the sanctuary of the temple than in the court outside its door. No Jew—not even David or Jesus Himself or any of His apostles—ever ventured into the sanctuary or temple proper except for certain Levites to whom such service was assigned. Two Greek words have customarily been translated “temple” in the New Testament. One (hieron) always means the temple enclosure (the porches, courts, chambers, and the like); the other word (naos) means the sanctuary proper—the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies—into which none but the authorized priests might go, and then only at stated times. But now, Jeremiah says, the forbidden heathen nations enter the very Holy of Holies for plunder! Nothing more humiliating could happen for a Jew than this.