Lamentations 5

A Prayer for Restoration

¹ Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us. Look and see our disgrace!

² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.

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

⁴ We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price.

⁵ We are closely pursued; we are weary and find no rest.

⁶ We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

⁷ Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their punishment.

⁸ Slaves rule over us; there is no one to deliver us from their hands.

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

¹⁰ Our skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger.

¹¹ Women have been ravished in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.

¹² Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect.

¹³ Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.

¹⁴ The elders have left the city gate; the young men have stopped their music.

¹⁵ Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.

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

¹⁷ Because of this, our hearts are faint; because of these, our eyes grow dim—

¹⁸ because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate, patrolled by foxes.

¹⁹ You, O LORD, reign forever; Your throne endures from generation to generation.

²⁰ Why have You forgotten us forever? Why have You forsaken us for so long?

²¹ Restore us to Yourself, O LORD, so we may return; renew our days as of old,

²² unless You have utterly rejected us and remain angry with us beyond measure.