World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Lamentations 2
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How has covered the daughter of with a cloud in his ! He has cast the beauty of Israel down from to the earth, and hasn't remembered in the day of his . has swallowed up all the dwellings of without . He has thrown down in his the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned and its princes. He has all of Israel in . He has drawn back his from before . He has burned up like a flaming , which devours all around. He has bent his bow like an enemy. He has stood with his as an adversary. He has killed all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of , he has poured out his like . has become as an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied and in the daughter of Judah. He has violently taken away his , as if it were a garden. He has destroyed his place of . has caused solemn and to be forgotten in . In the of his , he has despised the king and the priest. has cast off his . He has abhorred his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of . They have made a noise in house, as in the day of a solemn . has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of . He has stretched out the line. He has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall . They languish together. Her have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations where is not. Yes, her find no from . The of the daughter of sit on the ground. They keep silence. They have cast up on their heads. They have clothed themselves with . The virgins of hang down their heads to the ground. My eyes fail with tears. is troubled. My bile is poured on the earth, because of the of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city. They ask their mothers, "Where is grain and ?" when they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their is poured out into their mothers' . What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of ? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of ? For your breach is as big as the sea. Who can heal you? Your have seen false and foolish for you. They have not uncovered your , to reverse your , but have seen for you false revelations and causes of banishment. All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of , saying, "Is this the city that men called 'The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth'?" All your have opened their wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, "We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. We have seen it." has done that which he planned. He has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down, and has not pitied. He has caused to rejoice over you. He has exalted of your . Their cried to . O wall of the daughter of , let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief. Don't let your eyes rest. Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out like water before . Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, who faint for at the head of every street. "Look, , and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their , the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should the priest and the be killed in of ? "The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen . You have killed them in the day of your . You have slaughtered, and not pitied. "You have called, as in the day of a solemn , my terrors on every side. There was no one that escaped or remained in . My enemy has consumed those whom I have cared for and brought up.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.