5 Megilot
Scrolls
2:1
How has *ADONAI (יהוה) covered the bat Tzyon with a cloud
in HIS anger, [and] cast down from shamayim to haeretz the
beauty of Yisra'el, and zakar not HIS footstool in the day
of HIS anger!
2:2
*ADONAI (יהוה) has swallowed up all the habitations of Yaakov, and
has not pitied: he has thrown down in HIS wrath the strongholds of bat Yehudah; he has brought [them] down to
the ground: he has polluted the mamlachah (kingdom) and the sarim (princes)
thereof.
2:3
He has cut off in [his] fierce anger all the keren
(horn)
Yisrael:
He has drawn back HIS right hand from before the enemy, and
He burned against Yaakov like a flaming fire, [which] devours round about.
2:4
He has 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 ohel bat Tzyon: he poured out
HIS fury like fire.
2:5
*ADONAI (יהוה) was as an enemy: He has swallowed up Yisra'el, he
has swallowed up all her palaces: He has destroyed HIS strongholds, and has increased in the bat Yehudah mourning and
aniyah (lamentation).
2:6
And he has violently taken away HIS tabernacle, as [if it
were of] a garden: He has destroyed HIS places of the
assembly: ADONAI (יהוה) has caused the solemn moedim and mi shabbat (ruin משׁבּת)
to be forgotten in Tzyon, and has despised in the indignation
of HIS anger the melekh and the kohen.
2:7
*ADONAI (יהוה) has cast off HIS altar, he has abhorred HIS
mikdash, he has given up into the hand of the enemy the
walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the Beit
ADONAI (יהוה), as in the Yom Mo'ed (day of a solemn feast).
2:8
ADONAI (יהוה) has purposed to destroy the wall of the bat Tzyon: he has stretched out a line, he has not withdrawn
HIS hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the
wall to lament; they languished together.
2:9
Her she'arim (gates) are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and
broken her bars: her king and her sarim (princes) [are] among the
Gentiles: ha Torah [is] no [more]; her Neviim also find no
vision from ADONAI (יהוה).
2:10
The ziknei bat Tzyon sit upon the ground,
[and] keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads;
they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the betulot (virgins) of
Yerushalayim hang down their heads to the ground.
2:11
Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my
liver is poured upon haeretz, for the destruction of the
bat my people; because the children and the sucklings
swoon in the streets of the city.
2:12
They say to their mothers, Where [is] corn and wine? when
they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when
their nefesh was poured out into their mothers' bosom.
2:13
What thing shall I take to witness for you? what thing
shall I liken to you, O bat Yerushalayim? what shall I
equal to you, that I may nacham (comfort) you, O virgin bat
Tzyon? for your breach [is] great like the sea: who can heal
you?
2:14
Your Neviim have seen vain and foolish things for you:
and they have not discovered your iniquity, to turn away your
Golus (Exile); but have seen for you mase'ot shav and maduchim (false and
misleading burdens/oracles)..
2:15
All that pass by clap [their] hands at you; they hiss and
wag their head at bat Yerushalayim, [saying, Is] this
the city that [men] call The perfection of beauty, The joy of
the whole earth?
2:16
All your enemies have opened their mouth against you:
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].
2:17
ADONAI (יהוה) has done [that] which he had devised; he has
fulfilled HIS word that he had commanded in the minei kedem (days of old): he
has thrown down, and has not pitied: and he has caused
[your] enemy to rejoice over you, he has set up the keren (horn)
your adversaries.
2:18
Their heart cried to *ADONAI (יהוה), O wall of the bat
Tzyon, let tears run down like a river day and night: give
yourself no rest; let not the apple of your eye cease.
2:19
Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the
watches pour out your heart like water before the face of *ADONAI (יהוה): lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young
children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.
2:20
Raah
(see), O ADONAI (יהוה), and consider to whom you have done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit, [and] children of a span long?
shall the kohen and HaNavi be slain in the mikdash of
*ADONAI (יהוה)?
The Prophet's Anguish and Hope - 23 Tammuz
2:21
The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my
betulot (virgins) and my young men are fallen by the cherev; you have
slain [them] in the day of your anger; you have killed, [and]
not pitied.
2:22
You have called as in a solemn day my terrors round about,
so that in the day of ADONAI (יהוה)'S anger none escaped nor
remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up has mine
enemy consumed.
Bein Hametzarim - Between the Straits, on the 9th of Av, in 586 B.C.E., the Babylonians destroyed the Temple built by King Solomon in Yerushalayim; a Temple that had stood for over 350 years on the site of Mount Moriah. Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar came with all his army and laid siege to the city. Yerushalayim lay in utter ruins and her people were carried into exile; only a remnant survived.