Lamentations 5

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

5 Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
    behold, and see our disgrace!
² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
    our homes to aliens.
³ We have become orphans, fatherless;
    our mothers are like widows.
⁴ We must pay for the water we drink,
    the wood we get must be bought.
⁵ With a yoke^[a] on our necks we are hard driven;
    we are weary, we are given no rest.
⁶ We have given the hand to Egypt,
    and to Assyria, to get bread enough.
⁷ Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
    and we bear their iniquities.
⁸ Slaves rule over us;
    there is none to deliver us from their hand.
⁹ We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
    because of the sword in the wilderness.
¹⁰ Our skin is hot as an oven
    with the burning heat of famine.
¹¹ Women are ravished in Zion,
    virgins in the towns of Judah.
¹² Princes are hung up by their hands;
    no respect is shown to the elders.
¹³ Young men are compelled to grind at the mill;
    and boys stagger under loads of wood.
¹⁴ The old men have quit the city gate,
    the young men their music.
¹⁵ The joy of our hearts has ceased;
    our dancing has been turned to mourning.
¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head;
    woe to us, for we have sinned!
¹⁷ For this our heart has become sick,
    for these things our eyes have grown dim,
¹⁸ for Mount Zion which lies desolate;
    jackals prowl over it.