O Jerusalem, you are my beautiful and delicate daughter— but I will destroy you!
Parallel translations
- WEB I will cut off the comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion.
- KJV I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman.
- BSB Though she is beautiful and delicate, I will destroy the Daughter of Zion.
- NKJV I have likened the daughter of Zion To a lovely and delicate woman.
- NASB “The beautiful and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, I will destroy.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God announces He will destroy beautiful, pampered Zion, pictured as a delicate young woman. Outward loveliness offers no protection against the consequences of sin.
Overview
'Daughter of Zion' personifies Jerusalem as cherished yet now appointed for ruin. The tender description heightens the tragedy: what was lovely will be cut off. The lament tone reveals that God takes no delight in judgment even as He executes it.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Isa 1:8The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a besieged city.
- Jer 4:31For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”
- Lam 2:13What shall I testify to you? what shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?
- Isa 3:16–17Moreover Yahweh said, “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with outstretched necks and flirting eyes, walking to trip as they go, jingling ornaments on their feet;
- Lam 2:1How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, And hasn’t remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 6:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.