Hebrew Names Version HNV
The Message Bible MSG
1 How has the Lord covered the daughter of Tziyon with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to the eretz the beauty of Yisra'el, And hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
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Oh, oh, oh . . . How the Master has cut down Daughter Zion from the skies, dashed Israel's glorious city to earth, in his anger treated his favorite as throwaway junk.
2 The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Ya`akov, and has not pitied: He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Yehudah; He has brought them down to the ground; he has profaned the kingdom and the princes of it.
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The Master, without a second thought, took Israel in one gulp. Raging, he smashed Judah's defenses, made hash of her king and princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Yisra'el; He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: He has burned up Ya`akov like a flaming fire, which devours round about.
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His anger blazing, he knocked Israel flat, broke Israel's arm and turned his back just as the enemy approached, came on Jacob like a wildfire from every direction.
4 He has bent his bow like an enemy, he has stood with his right hand as an adversary, Has killed all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Tziyon he has poured out his wrath like fire.
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Like an enemy, he aimed his bow, bared his sword, and killed our young men, our pride and joy. His anger, like fire, burned down the homes in Zion.
5 The Lord is become as an enemy, he has swallowed up Yisra'el; He has swallowed up all her palaces, he has destroyed his strongholds; He has multiplied in the daughter of Yehudah mourning and lamentation.
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The Master became the enemy. He had Israel for supper. He chewed up and spit out all the defenses. He left Daughter Judah moaning and groaning.
6 He has violently taken away his tent, as if it were of a garden; he has destroyed his place of assembly: The LORD has caused solemn assembly and Shabbat to be forgotten in Tziyon, Has despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the Kohen.
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He plowed up his old trysting place, trashed his favorite rendezvous. God wiped out Zion's memories of feast days and Sabbaths, angrily sacked king and priest alike.
7 The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary; He has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
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God abandoned his altar, walked away from his holy Temple and turned the fortifications over to the enemy. As they cheered in God's Temple, you'd have thought it was a feast day!
8 The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Tziyon; He has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
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God drew up plans to tear down the walls of Daughter Zion. He assembled his crew, set to work and went at it. Total demolition! The stones wept!
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yes, her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
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Her city gates, iron bars and all, disappeared in the rubble: her kings and princes off to exile - no one left to instruct or lead; her prophets useless - they neither saw nor heard anything from God.
10 The Zakenim of the daughter of Tziyon sit on the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust on their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Yerushalayim hang down their heads to the ground.
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The elders of Daughter Zion sit silent on the ground. They throw dust on their heads, dress in rough penitential burlap - the young virgins of Jerusalem, their faces creased with the dirt.
11 My eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured on the eretz, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.
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My eyes are blind with tears, my stomach in a knot. My insides have turned to jelly over my people's fate. Babies and children are fainting all over the place,
12 They tell their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
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Calling to their mothers, "I'm hungry! I'm thirsty!" then fainting like dying soldiers in the streets, breathing their last in their mothers' laps.
13 What shall I testify to you? what shall I liken to you, daughter of Yerushalayim? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Tziyon? For your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?
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How can I understand your plight, dear Jerusalem? What can I say to give you comfort, dear Zion? Who can put you together again? This bust-up is past understanding.
14 Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions; They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captivity, But have seen for you false oracles and causes of banishment.
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Your prophets courted you with sweet talk. They didn't face you with your sin so that you could repent. Their sermons were all wishful thinking, deceptive illusions.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at you; They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Yerushalayim, [saying], Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole eretz?
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Astonished, passersby can't believe what they see. They rub their eyes, they shake their heads over Jerusalem. Is this the city voted "Most Beautiful" and "Best Place to Live"?
16 All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
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But now your enemies gape, slack-jawed. Then they rub their hands in glee: "We've got them! We've been waiting for this! Here it is!"
17 The LORD has done that which he purposed; he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He has thrown down, and has not pitied: He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; he has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
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God did carry out, item by item, exactly what he said he'd do. He always said he'd do this. Now he's done it - torn the place down. He's let your enemies walk all over you, declared them world champions!
18 Their heart cried to the Lord: wall of the daughter of Tziyon, let tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no respite; don't let the apple of your eye cease.
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Give out heart-cries to the Master, dear repentant Zion. Let the tears roll like a river, day and night, and keep at it - no time-outs. Keep those tears flowing!
19 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, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
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As each night watch begins, get up and cry out in prayer. Pour your heart out face to face with the Master. Lift high your hands. Beg for the lives of your children who are starving to death out on the streets.
20 Look, LORD, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the Kohen and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
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"Look at us, God. Think it over. Have you ever treated anyone like this? Should women eat their own babies, the very children they raised? Should priests and prophets be murdered in the Master's own Sanctuary?
21 The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, [and] not pitied.
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"Boys and old men lie in the gutters of the streets, my young men and women killed in their prime. Angry, you killed them in cold blood, cut them down without mercy.
22 You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; There was none that escaped or remained in the day of the LORD's anger: Those that I have dandled and brought up has my enemy consumed.
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"You invited, like friends to a party, men to swoop down in attack so that on the big day of God's wrath no one would get away. The children I loved and reared - gone, gone, gone."
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.