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Prophets and Kings
attributes of justice and love, now led him to plead confidently in
behalf of those who might turn from evil to righteousness.
But now Zion was utterly destroyed; the people of God were in
their captivity. Overwhelmed with grief, the prophet exclaimed: “How
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doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as
a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among
the provinces, how is she become tributary! She weepeth sore in the
night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath
none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
they are become her enemies.
“Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because
of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no
rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. The ways
of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her
gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is
in bitterness. Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for
the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her
children are gone into captivity before the enemy.”
“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!
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. 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 devoureth round about. He hath bent His bow like
an enemy: He stood with His right hand as an adversary, and slew all
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that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion:
He poured out His fury like fire.”
“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?”
“Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider, and behold
our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to
aliens. We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows....