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Day 2 Lamentations 2 Lamentations 2:1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! 2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof. 3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours round about. 4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire. 5 The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strongholds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. 6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. 7 The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath 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 feast. 8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. 9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD. 10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. 11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. 12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom. 13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? What thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee? 14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment. 15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? 16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: 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. 17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries. 18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease. 19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street. 20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied. 22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed. Have you seen days of hopelessness and despair? Have you seen everything you worked hard for crumble into dust? Have you wondered if there would come a day when you would see a turnaround in your circumstances, or if your life was doomed to go on that way? Judah lay in ruins. Israel, the apple of God’s eye, was in exile. Those left wandered the streets looking for any scrap of food they could find. Their temple was ruined. There weren’t any priests to tell them the law, so there wasn’t any law for them to consider. God had kept his promise and fulfilled his word to them because of their wickedness. Jeremiah walked the streets, seeing the desperate state of the people, and poured out his lament to God at the hopelessness he saw. As Christians, you believe you have the golden ticket to eternal life and nothing can go wrong with your life. However, if you were to turn your back on everything God did for you in sending Jesus to be your Savior, God would do the same thing to you he did to Judah and Israel. As harsh as God’s judgment was against Judah and Israel, there was also benevolence. God also promised that his judgment would not end in their complete destruction, but that they would turn back to God and proclaim him as their God, and make a covenant with him never to stray from him again. God had told Jeremiah that the time of his punishment was seventy years. Often when we are in the midst of the worst time of our lives, we fail to see the benevolence of God, and that all we need to do is turn our lives back to God, and covenant with him again to be our God, our Savior and Lord. When we do, God will turn our punishment into his victory in our lives and we will see God’s blessing once again. If you are going through a hard time in your life, it’s time to examine your life and determine whether you have turned away from God and are living your life on your terms. If you have, there is one thing you can do, and that is turn your life back over to God, and watch him straighten out all the rough places, and bring peace and stability back into your life. He will, I guarantee it. I have seen many times when God has made the crooked path of my life straight again. Let’s pray: Father, I love you, and want only what you want for me. Help me examine my life when problems arise, and put my life in your hands. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen. Copyright © 15 December 2017 by Valerie Routhieaux Image courtesy of Pixabay