Ekhah 2
2
1How hath Adonoi covered Bat Tziyon
with a cloud in His anger,
and hurled down from Shomayim
unto Eretz the tiferet Yisroel,
and remembered not His hadom (footstool)
in the Day of His Wrath!
2Adonoi hath swallowed up
all the habitations of Ya'akov, and hath not pitied;
He hath torn down in His Wrath
the strongholds of Bat Yehudah;
He hath brought them down to the ground;
chillel (He hath defiled) the mamlachah and the sarim (princes) thereof.
3He hath cut off in His fierce anger
kol keren Yisroel;
He hath drawn back His right hand
from before the oyev,
and He burned against Ya'akov like a flaming eish,
which devoureth all around.
4He hath bent His keshet (bow) like an oyev;
He took His stand with His right hand as an adversary,
and slaughtered all that were pleasant
to the eye in the ohel Bat Tziyon;
He poured out His fury like eish.
5Adonoi was like an oyev;
He hath swallowed up Yisroel,
He hath swallowed up all her armonot (palaces);
He hath destroyed His strongholds,
and hath increased in Bat Yehudah mourning and lamentation.
6And He hath violently destroyed His sukkah,
as if it were of a gan (garden);
He hath laid waste His Mo'ed;
Hashem hath caused Mo'ed and Shabbos
to be forgotten in Tziyon,
and in the indignation of His anger
hath spurned Melech and Kohen.
7Adonoi hath cast off His Mizbe'ach,
He hath disowned His Mikdash,
He hath given up into the yad oyev
the chomot armonot of hers;
they have raised shouts in the Beis Hashem,
as in the Yom Mo'ed.
8 Hashem hath purposed to destroy
the Chomat Bat Tziyon;
He hath stretched out a measuring line,
He hath not withdrawn His hand from destroying;
therefore He made the rampart and the chomah to lament;
they languished together.
9Her she'arim are sunk into the ground;
He hath destroyed and broken her bars;
her melech and her sarim (princes) are among the Goyim;
the torah is no more;
her nevi'im also find no chazon (vision) from Hashem.
10The Ziknei Bat Tziyon sit upon the ground,
and keep silence;
they have cast up aphar upon their heads;
they have girded themselves with sackcloth;
the Betulot Yerushalayim hang down
their heads to the ground.
11Mine eyes do fail from weepings,
my insides are troubled,
empty and poured upon ha'aretz,
for the destruction of Bat Ami;
because the olel and the infant
swoon in the rechovot of the city.
12They say to their imahot:
Where is grain and yayin?
Say they when they swooned like the wounded
in the rechovot Ir,
when their nefesh ebbed away
into the kheyk imahot of them.
13What thing shall I say to thee?
What thing shall I liken to thee, O Bat Yerushalayim?
What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee,
O Betulat Bat Tziyon?
For thy shever (destruction) is as gadol as the yam.
Who can heal thee?
14Thy nevi'im have seen false
and worthless visions for thee;
and they have not exposed thine avon,
to ward off thy captivity;
but have seen for thee mase'ot shav
and madduchim (false and misleading burdens, oracles).
15All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
they hiss and wag their head at Bat Yerushalayim,
saying: Is this the Ir that men call
Kelilat Yofi Masos L'Khol HaAretz
(perfection in beauty, the joy of the whole earth)?
16All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee;
they hiss and gnash their teeth;
they cry: We have swallowed her!
This is the Yom that we waited for;
we have found, we have seen it.
17 Hashem hath done that which He had devised;
He hath fulfilled His word
that He decreed in the yemai kedem;
He hath overthrown, and hath not pitied,
and He hath caused thine oyev to gloat over thee,
He hath exalted the keren of thine adversaries.
18Their lev cried unto Adonoi:
O Chomat Bat Tziyon,
let tears run down like a river yomam valailah;
give thyself no relief;
let not thine eye rest.
19Arise, cry out balailah;
in the beginning of the night watches
pour out thine lev like mayim
before the face of Adonoi;
lift up thy hands to Him
for the nefesh of thy ollelim,
that faint for hunger on every street corner.
20Look, Hashem, and consider
to whom Thou hast done this.
Shall the nashim eat their offspring,
the children they have cared for?
Shall the Kohen and the Navi
be slain in the Mikdash Adonoi?
21The na'ar and the zaken lie
in the dust of the streets;
my betulot and my bochurim
are fallen by the cherev;
Thou hast slain them in the Day of Thy Wrath;
Thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied.
22Thou hast summoned as in a Yom Mo'ed
my terrors all around,
so that in the Yom Af Hashem
none escaped nor remained;
those that I have swaddled and reared
hath mine oyev consumed.
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Ekhah 2: TOJB2011
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THE ORTHODOX JEWISH BIBLE
FOURTH EDITION REVISED © Artists For Israel Intl Inc., 2002-2011, 2021, 2024.
