Lamentations 5  Tree of Life Version

5 Remember, Adonai,
what has come upon us.
Look, and see our disgrace!
² Our inheritance is turned over to strangers,
    our homes to foreigners.
³ We have become orphans, fatherless,
    our mothers are like widows.
⁴ We pay silver for the water we drink;
    our wood comes at a price.
⁵ Our pursuers are at our necks.
    We are weary and have no rest.
⁶ We have held out our hand to Egypt
    and Assyria to be satisfied with bread.
⁷ Our fathers sinned and are no more,
    but we bear their punishment.
⁸ Slaves rule over us.
    There is no one to deliver us from their hand.
⁹ We get our bread at the peril of our lives
    because of the sword in the desert.
¹⁰ Our skin is hot as an oven
    due to fever from famine.
¹¹ The women in Zion have been ravished,
    maidens in the towns of Judah.
¹² Princes are hung up by their hands;
    elders are dishonored.
¹³ Young men toil at the millstone.
    Boys stagger under loads of wood.
¹⁴ Elders are gone from the gate,
    young men from their music.
¹⁵ Joy has ceased in our hearts.
    Our dance has turned into mourning.
¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head.
    Oy to us, for we have sinned!
¹⁷ Because of this our heart is faint,
    for these things our eyes are dim,
¹⁸ for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
    as jackals prowl over it.

¹⁹ You, Adonai, are enthroned forever;
    Your throne endures from generation to generation.^[a]
20 Why do You always forget us
    and forsake us for so long?
²¹ Bring us back to You, Adonai,
    and we will return.
Renew our days as of old—
²² unless You have utterly rejected us
    and are exceedingly angry with us.