A reading from the Book of Lamentations.

How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud.

He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel.

He has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob. In his wrath he is broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He is brought down to the ground and dishonor the kingdom and its rulers. He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel. He is withdrawn from them his right hand in the face of the enemy. He is burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around.

He has bent his bow, like an enemy with his right hand set like a foe, and he has killed all who

were delightful in our eyes. In the tent of the daughter of Zion. He has poured out his fury like fire.

The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all its

palaces. He has laid in ruins its strongholds, and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah,

mourning and lamentation. He has laid waste his booth like a garden, laid in ruins his meeting

place. The Lord has made Zion forget festival and Sabbath, and in his fierce

indignation has spurned king and priest. The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary.

He has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces. They raised a clamor

in the house of the Lord as on the day of festival. The Lord determined to lay in ruins the wall of

the daughter of Zion. He stretched out the measuring line. He did not restrain his hand from destroying.

He calls rampart and wall to lament. They languished together. Her gates have sunk into the ground.

He has ruined and broken her bars. Her king and princes are among the nations. The law is no more.

And her prophets find no vision from the Lord. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground

in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth the young women of Jerusalem

have bowed their heads to the ground.

My eyes are spent with weeping. My stomach churns. My bile was poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the

streets of the city. They cried to their mothers, where is bread and wine, as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city. They cried to their mothers, where is bread and wine, as they faint like a

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