Lamentations

5 Remember, Jehovah, what happened to us;

look and see our ignominy.

2 Our estate has swung to strangers,

our houses to foreigners.

3 We have become fatherless orphans,

our mothers the same as widows.

4 We have been drinking our water for cash—

our wood comes in at a price.

5* We have had the pursuers close at our heels,

have been tired out, have been given no rest.

6* We have given ourselves up in Egypt,

in Assyria, to get a full meal.

7 Our fathers sinned; they are gone,

and we have been carrying their guilt.

8 Slaves have become rulers over us;

there is nobody to tear us out of their hand

9 We get our bread in at the cost of our lives

because of the wilderness sword.

10 Our skin is hot as a baking-crock

by the fever of starvation.

11 They deflowered women in Sion,

maidens in the cities of Judah.

12* Generals were impaled by their hands,

to elders’ faces no deference was paid.

13 Young men carried mills

and boys stumbled with timber.

14* Old men have desisted from sitting in gates,

young men from their lute-playing.

15 The joyousness of our hearts has ceased,

our dancing is turned to mourning,

16 The crown on our heads has fallen;

woe is ours, because we have sinned.

17 It is for this our hearts have grown sick,

it is for these things our eyes are darkened,

18 For Mount Sion, that it is desolated;

foxes walk over it.

19 You, Jehovah, are seated forever;

your throne is for generations upon generations;

20* Why are you forgetting us permanently,

leaving us while time goes on?

21 Bring us back to you, Jehovah, and back we will come;

give us new days like the old time,

22 —But you have repudiated us outright,

are incensed against us to the utmost.