Lamentations 5

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

5 Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
    look, 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 made a pact with^[b] Egypt and Assyria,
    to get enough bread.
⁷ Our ancestors sinned; they are no more,
    and we bear their iniquities.
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 wilderness.
¹⁰ Our skin is black as an oven
    from the scorching heat of famine.
¹¹ Women are raped 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,
    and boys stagger under loads of wood.
¹⁴ The old men have left 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 Because of this our hearts are sick,
    because of these things our eyes have grown dim:
¹⁸ because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate;
    jackals prowl over it.