Lamentations

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.