Lamentations 5

¹Lamentations 5:1. Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us. Look and see our disgrace!²Lamentations 5:2. Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.³Lamentations 5:3. We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows.⁴Lamentations 5:4. We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price.⁵Lamentations 5:5. We are closely pursued; we are weary and find no rest.⁶Lamentations 5:6. We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.⁷Lamentations 5:7. Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their punishment.⁸Lamentations 5:8. Slaves rule over us; there is no one to deliver us from their hands.⁹Lamentations 5:9. We get our bread at the risk of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness.¹⁰Lamentations 5:10. Our skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger.¹¹Lamentations 5:11. Women have been ravished in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.¹²Lamentations 5:12. Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect.¹³Lamentations 5:13. Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.¹⁴Lamentations 5:14. The elders have left the city gate; the young men have stopped their music.¹⁵Lamentations 5:15. Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.¹⁶Lamentations 5:16. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!¹⁷Lamentations 5:17. Because of this, our hearts are faint; because of these, our eyes grow dim—¹⁸Lamentations 5:18. because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate, patrolled by foxes.¹⁹Lamentations 5:19. You, O LORD, reign forever; Your throne endures from generation to generation.²⁰Lamentations 5:20. Why have You forgotten us forever? Why have You forsaken us for so long?²¹Lamentations 5:21. Restore us to Yourself, O LORD, so we may return; renew our days as of old,²²Lamentations 5:22. unless You have utterly rejected us and remain angry with us beyond measure.