Lamentations

¹Remember, LORD, what has come on us. Look, and see our reproach. ²Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to aliens. ³We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are as widows. ⁴We must pay for water to drink. Our wood is sold to us. ⁵Our pursuers are on our necks. We are weary, and have no rest. ⁶We have given our hands to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. ⁷Our fathers sinned, and are no more. We have borne their iniquities. ⁸Servants rule over us. There is no one to deliver us out of their hand. ⁹We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness. ¹⁰Our skin is black like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine. ¹¹They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah. ¹²Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honored. ¹³The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood. ¹⁴The elders have ceased from the gate, and the young men from their music. ¹⁵The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning. ¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned! ¹⁷For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim: ¹⁸for the mountain of Zion, which is desolate. The foxes walk on it. ¹⁹You, LORD, remain forever. Your throne is from generation to generation. ²⁰Why do you forget us forever, and forsake us for so long a time? ²¹Turn us to yourself, LORD, and we will be turned. Renew our days as of old. ²²But you have utterly rejected us. You are very angry against us.