Now the master— he is an enemy.
He topples Israel. He topples all
her fortifications— walls smashed to dust!
But he resupplies little miss Judah,
all she’s lost— more wretched women and miserable men.
His own tent— His own tabernacle—like a pick-axe
in a tomato patch, he undercuts, thrashes and up-earths.
The LORD abandoned his plans in Zion: sabbath and feasts.
The LORD tore and pitched and lurched: the king and priest
in both the disgrace and the indignation of his raving.
His own altar he threw over. The Lord
cursed his own holy cloistered chamber:
To hostile troops he delivered the city’s turreted walls.
The walls resounded shouts and batterings into the house
of the Lord—the same chatter-on-stone sound as any holy day.
The Lord pondered— how to pull
down the wall around Zion’s daughter.
He himself cast up a slender line, drew
the loop taunt with his own hand.
The parapets slightly flashed a shift angle in the late daylight;
slumping, the whole wall crumbled in a splash of billows and motes.
Lamentations 2:5-8 vlgt/bti