Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, 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 your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.Lamentations 2:18–19 · World English Bible
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Lamentations 2:18–22
Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, 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 your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street. “Look, LORD, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? “The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered, and not pitied. “You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was no one that escaped or remained in the day of the LORD’s anger. My enemy has consumed those whom I have cared for and brought up.
Context note · editorial
After Jerusalem's devastation, the poem calls for tears and prayer for children facing hunger. It invites the community to pour out its heart without softening the catastrophe.
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