Lamentations 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.●