Lamentaciones 5

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