Lamentations 2:1-3

Contemporary English Version

The Lord Was Like an Enemy

The Prophet Speaks:

2 The Lord was angry!
    So he disgraced^[a] Zion
though it was Israel's pride
    and his own place of rest.
In his anger he threw Zion down
    from heaven to earth.
²The Lord had no mercy!
He destroyed the homes
    of Jacob's descendants.
In his anger he tore down
    every walled city in Judah;
he toppled the nation
together with its leaders,
    leaving them in shame.

³The Lord was so furiously angry
that he wiped out
    the whole army^[b] of Israel
by not supporting them
    when the enemy attacked.
He was like a raging fire
that swallowed up
    the descendants of Jacob.

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Footnotes

2.1 disgraced: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
2.3 army: The Hebrew text has “horn,” which refers to the horn of a bull, one of the most powerful animals in ancient Palestine.