Lamentations 5

¹ Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; behold, and see our disgrace!

² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to aliens.

³ We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.

⁴ We must pay for the water we drink, the wood we get must be bought.

⁵ With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven; we are weary, we are given no rest.

⁶ We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough.

⁷ Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities.

⁸ Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.

⁹ We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.

¹⁰ Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine.

¹¹ Women are ravished in Zion, virgins in the towns of Judah.

¹² Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders.

¹³ Young men are compelled to grind at the mill; and boys stagger under loads of wood.

¹⁴ The old men have quit the city gate, the young men their music.

¹⁵ The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning.

¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹⁷ For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim,

¹⁸ for Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.

¹⁹ But thou, O LORD, dost reign for ever; thy throne endures to all generations.

²⁰ Why dost thou forget us for ever, why dost thou so long forsake us?

²¹ Restore us to thyself, O LORD, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old!

²² Or hast thou utterly rejected us? Art thou exceedingly angry with us?