Lamentations 5

NEW JERUSALEM	CATHOLIC PUBLIC DOMAIN
1 Yahweh, remember what has happened to us; consider, and see our degradation.	1 Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us. Consider and look kindly upon our disgrace.
2 Our heritage has passed to strangers, our homes to foreigners.	2 Our inheritance has been turned over to foreigners; our houses to outsiders.
3 We are orphans, we are fatherless; our mothers are like widows.	3 We have become orphans without a father; our mothers are like widows.
4 We have to buy our own water to drink, our own wood we can get only at a price.	4 We paid for our drinking water. We acquired our wood for a price.
5 The yoke is on our necks; we are persecuted; exhausted we are, al owed no rest.	5 We were dragged by our necks. Being weary, no rest was given to us.
6 We made a pact with Egypt, with Assyria, to have plenty of food.	6 We have given our hand to Egypt and to the Assyrians, so that we may be satisfied with bread.
7 Our ancestors sinned; they are no more, and we bear the weight of their guilt.	7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not. And we have carried their iniquities.
8 Slaves rule us; there is no one to rescue us from their clutches.	8 Servants have become rulers over us. There was no one to redeem us from their hand.
9 At peril of our lives we earn our bread, by risking the sword of the desert.	9 We obtained our bread at the risk of our lives, before the face of the sword, in the wilderness.
10 Our skin is as hot as an oven, from the scorch of famine.	10 Our skin was burned, as if by an oven, before the face of the tempest of the famine.
11 The women in Zion have been raped, the young girls in the towns of Judah.	11 They humiliated the women in Zion and the virgins in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes have been hanged by their hands; the face of the old has won no respect.	12 The leaders were suspended by their hand. They were not ashamed before the faces of the elders.
13 Youths have been put to the mil , boys stagger under loads of wood.	13 They have sexually abused the adolescents, and the children were corrupted in the wood.
14 The elders have deserted the gateway; the young have given up their music.	14 The elders have ceased from the gates, the youths from the choir of the psalms.
15 Joy has vanished from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.	15 The gladness of our heart has failed, our singing has been turned into mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our heads. Alas that ever we sinned!	16 The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned.
17 This is why our hearts are sick; this is why our eyes are dim:	17 Because of this, our heart became gloomy; for this reason, our eyes have been darkened:
18 because Mount Zion is desolate; jackals roam to and fro on it.	18 because of mount Zion, because it was ruined. Foxes have wandered upon it.
19 Yet you, Yahweh, rule from eternity; your throne endures from age to age.	19 But you, O Lord, shall remain for eternity, your throne from generation to generation.
20 Why do you never remember us? Why do you abandon us so long?	20 Why would you forget us forever? Why would you forsake us for a long time?
21 Make us come back to you, Yahweh, and we will come back. Restore us as we were before!	21 Convert us, O Lord, to you, and we shall be converted. Renew our days, as from the beginning.
22 Unless you have utterly rejected us, in an anger which knows no limit.	22 But you have utterly rejected us; you are vehemently angry against us.