Lamentations 2:3-5

The Voice

³ Cut down by God’s anger,
    the pride and strength of Israel falls;
He withdrew His right hand and stood back and allowed Israel’s enemies
    to wreak havoc in the land.
God has burned and consumed Jacob
    in an insatiable fire.

⁴ Deployed like an enemy, God stood poised against Judah—
    bow bent, right hand clinched—crashing down
On everything that we admired
    among daughter Zion’s tents.
The anger of the Lord whipped like flickering flames to reduce it to ashes.

⁵ Enemy of ours—our God—who would have thought?
    Yet the Lord chewed up Israel,
Swallowed its mighty palaces;
    He spit out fortresses and reduced them to dust.
God increased suffering and sorrow
    to a fever pitch in daughter Judah.