Lamentations 2:5

³ In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it.

⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.

⁶ He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest.

⁷ The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.

Here the Bible tells a story about someone else. Ask yourself what it can say to us today. Do read the surrounding verses too, because the context often says more than a single verse.

Compare

BSB: The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.
KJV: The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
WEB: The Lord has become as an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.
ASV: The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds; And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
DARBY: The Lord is become as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel; he hath swallowed up all her palaces; he hath destroyed his strongholds, and hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
BLB: The Lord has been like an enemy! He has swallowed up Israel, has swallowed up all her palaces; He has destroyed her strongholds, and He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

ÅB: Herren er blitt som en fiende, han har tilintetgjort Israel, tilintetgjort alle dets palasser, ødelagt dets festninger og hopet sorg på sorg over Judas datter.
OTB: Herren har blitt som en fiende; han har fortært Israel. Han har slukt alle hennes palasser og ødelagt hennes festninger, og har mangfoldiggjort sorg og klage for Datter Juda.
B1930: Herren er blitt som en fiende, han har tilintetgjort Israel, tilintetgjort alle dets palasser, ødelagt dets festninger og hopet sorg på sorg over Judas datter.

Study notes (Tyndale)

Original text and word study

Cross references

Lamentations 2:2
Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes.
Read in context
Jeremiah 30:14
All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer seek you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins.
Read in context
2 Kings 25:9
He burned down the house of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.
Read in context
Jeremiah 52:13
He burned down the house of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.
Read in context
Lamentations 2:4
He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.
Read in context
Jeremiah 15:1
Then the LORD said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people. Send them from My presence, and let them go.
Read in context
Ezekiel 2:10
which He unrolled before me. And written on the front and back of it were words of lamentation, mourning, and woe.
Read in context
2 Chronicles 36:16–17
But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.
Read in context