Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁴ How shall we sing the song of the Lord
    in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand forget its skill.
⁶ If I do not remember you,
    let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not have Jerusalem
    as my highest joy.

⁷ Remember, O Lord, the people of Edom
    in the day of Jerusalem,
who said, “Raze it, raze it,
    down to its foundations.”

⁸ O daughter of Babylon, who is to be destroyed,
    blessed is the one who rewards you
    as you have done to us.
⁹ Blessed is the one who takes
    and dashes your little ones against the rocks.

¹³ What can I say for you,
    to what shall I liken you,
    O daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare with you,
    that I may comfort you,
    O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your devastation is great like the sea;
    who can heal you?

¹⁴ Your prophets have seen for you
    false and deceptive visions;
they have not revealed your iniquity,
    to bring back your captives,
but have seen for you oracles
    that are false and misleading.

¹⁵ All who pass by
    clap their hands at you;
they hiss and shake their heads
    at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
“Is this the city that men call
    the perfection of beauty,
    the joy of the whole earth?”

¹⁶ All your enemies
    have opened their mouth against you;
they hiss and gnash their teeth.
    They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Certainly this is the day that we longed for;
    we have found it; we have seen it.”

¹⁷ The Lord has done what He planned;
    He has fulfilled His word
    that He had commanded in the days of old.
He has thrown down and has not pitied,
    and He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you;
    He has exalted the power of your adversaries.

¹⁸ Their heart cried to the Lord:
O wall of the daughter of Zion,
    let your tears run down
    like a river day and night;
give yourself no rest,
    your eyes no respite!

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night,
    at the beginning of the watches;
pour out your heart like water
    before the face of the Lord.
Lift your hands to Him
    for the lives of your young children,
who faint for hunger
    at the head of every street.

²⁰ Look, O Lord, and consider!
    To whom have You done this?
Should the women eat their offspring,
    the children who were born healthy?
Should the priest and the prophet be killed
    in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹ The young and the old lie
    on the ground in the streets;
my virgins and my young men
    have fallen by the sword;
You have killed them in the day of Your anger,
    You have slaughtered and not pitied.

²² You have invited as to a feast day the terrors all around;
in the day of the Lord’s anger
    no one escaped or survived;
those whom I held and raised
    my enemy destroyed.