Polyglot Bible: Lamentations: Lamentations 2

This is the second chapter of the biblical book of Lamentations, presented in a parallel trilingual format: the King James Version English translation, the Greek Septuagint (marked "Sep"), and the Hebrew Masoretic Text (marked "Tan"). Lamentations is an ancient collection of elegiac poems lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple, likely composed in the sixth century BCE following the Babylonian conquest. The chapter's central and theologically striking argument is that the destruction of Jerusalem was not the work of foreign enemies but of God himself acting as an enemy against his own people — God bent his bow, cast down the city's walls, abandoned his altar, and abandoned Israel to grief and humiliation. The poem moves from cosmic divine action down to searing human detail: starving infants dying in their mothers' arms, elders sitting silent in the dust, prophets who gave false visions. The distinctive perspective is one of unsparing theological candor — the speaker does not deflect blame onto Babylon but holds God directly responsible, while also acknowledging the role of false prophets who concealed Israel's iniquity. The chapter closes with a raw communal cry demanding that God look upon what he has done, cataloguing atrocities including cannibalism and the slaughter of priests within the sanctuary itself.

Polyglot Bible: Lamentations: Lamentations 2

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