Lamentations 5 / 5
- 1
(Restore Us to Yourself, O Lord)
Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
look, and see our disgrace!
- 2
Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our homes to foreigners.
- 3
We have become orphans, fatherless;
our mothers are like widows.
- 4
We must pay for the water we drink;
the wood we get must be bought.
- 5
Our pursuers are at our necks;
we are weary; we are given no rest.
- 6
We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria,
to get bread enough.
- 7
Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
and we bear their iniquities.
- 8
Slaves rule over us;
there is none to deliver us from their hand.
- 9
We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
because of the sword in the wilderness.
- 10
Our skin is hot as an oven
with the burning heat of famine.
- 11
Women are raped in Zion,
young women in the towns of Judah.
- 12
Princes are hung up by their hands;
no respect is shown to the elders.
- 13
Young men are compelled to grind at the mill,
and boys stagger under loads of wood.
- 14
The old men have left the city gate,
the young men their music.
- 15
The joy of our hearts has ceased;
our dancing has been turned to mourning.
- 16
The crown has fallen from our head;
woe to us, for we have sinned!
- 17
For this our heart has become sick,
for these things our eyes have grown dim,
- 18
for Mount Zion which lies desolate;
jackals prowl over it.
- 19
But you, O Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures to all generations.
- 20
Why do you forget us forever,
why do you forsake us for so many days?
- 21
Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!
Renew our days as of old--
- 22
unless you have utterly rejected us,
and you remain exceedingly angry with us.