Lamentations 5:1-22

The People of Jerusalem Pray:

5:1 O Lord, reflect on what has happened to us;

consider and look at our disgrace.

5:2 Our inheritance is turned over to strangers;

foreigners now occupy our homes.

5:3 We have become fatherless orphans;

our mothers have become widows.

5:4 We must pay money for our own water;

we must buy our own wood at a steep price.

5:5 We are pursued – they are breathing down our necks;

we are weary and have no rest.

5:6 We have submitted to Egypt and Assyria

in order to buy food to eat.

5:7 Our forefathers sinned and are dead,

but we suffer their punishment.

5:8 Slaves rule over us;

there is no one to rescue us from their power.

5:9 At the risk of our lives we get our food

because robbers lurk in the countryside.

5:10 Our skin is hot as an oven

due to a fever from hunger.

5:11 They raped women in Zion,

virgins in the towns of Judah.

5:12 Princes were hung by their hands;

elders were mistreated.

5:13 The young men perform menial labor;

boys stagger from their labor.

5:14 The elders are gone from the city gate;

the young men have stopped playing their music.

5:15 Our hearts no longer have any joy;

our dancing is turned to mourning.

5:16 The crown has fallen from our head;

woe to us, for we have sinned!

5:17 Because of this, our hearts are sick;

because of these things, we can hardly see through our tears.

5:18 For wild animals are prowling over Mount Zion,

which lies desolate.

5:19 But you, O Lord, reign forever;

your throne endures from generation to generation.

5:20 Why do you keep on forgetting us?

Why do you forsake us so long?

5:21 Bring us back to yourself, O Lord, so that we may return to you;

renew our life as in days before,

5:22 unless you have utterly rejected us

and are angry with us beyond measure.