Lamentations 5

¹Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider and behold our reproach. ²Our inheritance is turned to aliens: our houses to strangers. ³We are become orphans without a father: our mothers are as widows. ⁴We have drunk our water for money: we have bought our wood. ⁵We were dragged by the necks, we were weary and no rest was given us. ⁶We have given our hand to Egypt, and to the Assyrians, that we might be satisfied with bread. ⁷Our fathers have sinned, and are not: and we have borne their iniquities. ⁸Servants have ruled over us: there was none to redeem us out of their hand. ⁹We fetched our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the desert. ¹⁰Our skin was burnt as an oven, by reason of the violence of the famine. ¹¹They oppressed the women in Sion, and the virgins in the cities of Juda. ¹²The princes were hanged up by their hand: they did not respect the persons of the ancients. ¹³They abused the young men indecently: and the children fell under the wood. ¹⁴The ancients have ceased from the gates: the young men from the choir of the singers. ¹⁵The joy of our heart is ceased, our dancing is turned into mourning. ¹⁶The crown is fallen from our head: woe to us, because we have sinned. ¹⁷Therefore is our heart sorrowful, therefore are our eyes become dim. ¹⁸For mount Sion, because it is destroyed, foxes have walked upon it. ¹⁹But thou, O Lord, shalt remain for ever, thy throne from generation to generation. ²⁰Why wilt thou forget us for ever? why wilt thou forsake us for a long time? ²¹Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted: renew our days, as from the beginning. ²²But thou hast utterly rejected us, thou art exceedingly angry with us.