Lamentations 5

¹ Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us: Behold, and see our reproach.

² Our inheritance is turned unto strangers, Our houses unto aliens.

³ We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.

⁴ We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold unto us.

⁵ Our pursuers are upon our necks: We are weary, and have no rest.

⁶ We have given the hand to the Egyptians, And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

⁷ Our fathers sinned, and are not; And we have borne their iniquities.

⁸ Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.

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

¹⁰ Our skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.

¹¹ They ravished the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah.

¹² Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honored.

¹³ The young men bare the mill; And the children stumbled under the wood.

¹⁴ The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music.

¹⁵ The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.

¹⁶ The crown is fallen from our head: Woe unto us! for we have sinned.

¹⁷ For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim;

¹⁸ For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk upon it.

¹⁹ Thou, O Jehovah, abidest for ever; Thy throne is from generation to generation.

²⁰ Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, And forsake us so long time?

²¹ Turn thou us unto thee, O Jehovah, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old.

²² But thou hast utterly rejected us; Thou art very wroth against us.