Lamentations 5

¹ Remember, Yahweh, what has come on us. Look, and see our reproach.

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

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

⁴ We must pay for water to drink. Our wood is sold to us.

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

⁶ We have given our hands to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

⁷ Our fathers sinned, and are no more. We have borne their iniquities.

⁸ Servants rule over us. There is no one to deliver us out of their hand.

⁹ We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in 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 hands. The faces of elders were not honored.

¹³ The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood.

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

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

¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to 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 on it.

¹⁹ You, Yahweh, remain forever. Your throne is from generation to generation.

²⁰ Why do you forget us forever, and forsake us for so long a time?

²¹ Turn us to yourself, Yahweh, and we will be turned. Renew our days as of old.

²² But you have utterly rejected us. You are very angry against us.