Lamentations 5

¹Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;

behold, and see our disgrace!

²Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,

our homes to aliens.

³We have become orphans, fatherless;

our mothers are like widows.

⁴We must pay for the water we drink,

the wood we get must be bought.

⁵With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven;

we are weary, we are given no rest.

⁶We have given the hand to Egypt,

and to Assyria, to get bread enough.

⁷Our fathers sinned, and are no more;

and we bear their iniquities.

⁸Slaves rule over us;

there is none to deliver us from their hand.

⁹We get our bread at the peril of our lives,

because of the sword in the wilderness.

¹⁰Our skin is hot as an oven

with the burning heat of famine.

¹¹Women are ravished in Zion,

virgins in the towns of Judah.

¹²Princes are hung up by their hands;

no respect is shown to the elders.

¹³Young men are compelled to grind at the mill;

and boys stagger under loads of wood.

¹⁴The old men have quit the city gate,

the young men their music.

¹⁵The joy of our hearts has ceased;

our dancing has been turned to mourning.

¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head;

woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹⁷For this our heart has become sick,

for these things our eyes have grown dim,

¹⁸for Mount Zion which lies desolate;

jackals prowl over it.

¹⁹But thou, O Lord, dost reign for ever;

thy throne endures to all generations.

²⁰Why dost thou forget us for ever,

why dost thou so long forsake us?

²¹Restore us to thyself, O Lord, that we may be restored!

Renew our days as of old!

²²Or hast thou utterly rejected us?

Art thou exceedingly angry with us?