Lamentations - Chapter 5

1Keep in mind, O Lord, what has come to us: take note and see our shame. 2Our heritage is given up to men of strange lands, our houses to those who are not our countrymen. 3We are children without fathers, our mothers are like widows. 4We give money for a drink of water, we get our wood for a price. 5Our attackers are on our necks: overcome with weariness, we have no rest. 6We have given our hands to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians so that we might have enough bread. 7Our fathers were sinners and are dead; and the weight of their evil-doing is on us. 8Servants are ruling over us, and there is no one to make us free from their hands. 9We put our lives in danger to get our bread, because of the sword of the waste land. 10Our skin is heated like an oven because of our burning heat from need of food. 11They took by force the women in Zion, the virgins in the towns of Judah. 12Their hands put princes to death by hanging: the faces of old men were not honoured. 13The young men were crushing the grain, and the boys were falling under the wood. 14The old men are no longer seated in the doorway, and the music of the young men has come to an end. 15The joy of our hearts is ended; our dancing is changed into sorrow. 16The crown has been taken from our head: sorrow is ours, for we are sinners. 17Because of this our hearts are feeble; for these things our eyes are dark; 18Because of the mountain of Zion which is a waste; jackals go over it. 19You, O Lord, are seated as King for ever; the seat of your power is eternal. 20Why have we gone from your memory for ever? why have you been turned away from us for so long? 21Make us come back to you, O Lord, and let us be turned; make our days new again as in the past. 22But you have quite given us up; you are full of wrath against us.