Lamentations 5

New Catholic Bible

¹ Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us
    look, and see our disgrace.
² Our inherited lands have been given to strangers,
    our homes to foreigners.
³ We have become orphans and fatherless;
    our mothers are like widows.
⁴ We must purchase the water we drink;
    we must pay for our own wood.
⁵ On our necks is the yoke of those who persecute us;
    although we are exhausted, we are afforded no rest.
⁶ We have submitted to Egypt and Assyria
    to get enough bread to sustain us.
⁷ Our ancestors who sinned are no longer alive,
    but we bear the burden of their guilt.
⁸ Slaves have become our rulers;
    there is no one to deliver us from their hands.
⁹ We earn our bread at the peril of our lives
    because of the sword in the wilderness.^[a]
10 Our skin is blackened as in a furnace
    from the scorching heat of famine.
¹¹ Women have been raped in Zion
    and virgins in the towns of Judah.
¹² Princes have been hung up by their hands;
    elders are shown no respect.
¹³ Young men toil, carrying the millstones;
    boys stagger under their loads of wood.
¹⁴ The old men no longer assemble at the city gate;^[b]
    the young men have given up their music.
¹⁵ Joy has vanished from our hearts;
    our dancing has turned to mourning.
¹⁶ The garlands have fallen from our heads;
    woe to us, for we have sinned.
¹⁷ This is why we are sick at heart;
    because of this our eyes have grown dim.
¹⁸ Mount Zion lies desolate,
    overrun with jackals.
¹⁹ But you, O Lord, reign forever;
    your throne endures from age to age.
²⁰ Why have you ceased to remember us?
    Why have you abandoned us for so long a time?
²¹ Restore us back to you, O Lord, and we will return.^[c]
    Renew our days as we had of old,
²² unless you have utterly rejected us
    with an anger that is beyond measure.