Lamentations 5:1–16

¹Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us.

Look and see our disgrace!

²Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,

our houses to foreigners.

³We have become fatherless orphans;

our mothers are widows.

⁴We must buy the water we drink;

our wood comes at a price.

⁵We are closely pursued;

we are weary and find no rest.

⁶We submitted to Egypt and Assyria

to get enough bread.

⁷Our fathers sinned and are no more,

but we bear their punishment.

⁸Slaves rule over us;

there is no one to deliver us from their hands.

⁹We get our bread at the risk of our lives

because of the sword in the wilderness.

¹⁰Our skin is as hot as an oven

with fever from our hunger.

¹¹Women have been ravished in Zion,

virgins in the cities of Judah.

¹²Princes have been hung up by their hands;

elders receive no respect.

¹³Young men toil at millstones;

boys stagger under loads of wood.

¹⁴The elders have left the city gate;

the young men have stopped their music.

¹⁵Joy has left our hearts;

our dancing has turned to mourning.

¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head.

Woe to us, for we have sinned!