11My 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.
12They 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.
13What 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?
14The 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.
15All 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?”
16All 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!”
17The 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.
18The hearts of the people
cry out to the Lord.
O wall of the Daughter of Zion,
let your tears run down like a river
day and night.
Give yourself no relief,
and your eyes no rest.
19Arise, cry out in the night
from the first watch of the night.
Pour out your heart like water
in the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to Him
for the lives of your children
who are fainting from hunger
on the corner of every street.
20Look, O LORD, and consider:
Whom have You ever treated like this?
Should women eat their offspring,
the infants they have nurtured?
Should priests and prophets be killed
in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21Both young and old lie together
in the dust of the streets.
My young men and maidens
have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of Your anger;
You have slaughtered them without compassion.
22You summoned my attackers on every side,
as for the day of an appointed feast.
In the day of the LORD’s anger
no one escaped or survived;
my enemy has destroyed
those I nurtured and reared.
— Lamentations 2:11-22