Lamentations 5

Chapter 5

Remember, 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.