Family Verses
God's design for family — love, honor, and commitment that reflect His covenant love.
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 strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought {them} down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof. {brought...: Heb. made to touch}
He hath 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 tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire. {all...: Heb. all the desirable of the eye}
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.
The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. {destroying: Heb. swallowing up}
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, {and} keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. {swoon: or, faint}
They say to their mothers, Where {is} corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.
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?
All that pass by clap {their} hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, {saying, Is} this the city that {men} call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? {by: Heb. by the way}
Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.