Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹ By the rivers of Babylon,
we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
² On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
³ For there our captors demanded songs
and our tormentors asked for joy:
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
⁴ How can we sing a song of Adonai in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither.
⁶ May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I cease to remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem above my chief joy.
⁷ Remember, Adonai, the children of Edom,
what they said on the day Jerusalem fell:
“Strip her, strip her to her very foundation!”
⁸ O daughter of Babylon, the devastated one,
happy is the one who repays you
as you have paid us.
⁹ Happy is the one who seizes your little ones
and dashes them upon the rock.

¹³ How can I admonish you?
To what can I compare you,
    O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you, so that I might console you,
    O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your wound is as deep as the sea!
    Who can heal you?
¹⁴ Your prophets have seen for you
    false and worthless visions.
They did not expose your iniquity,
    so as to restore your captivity.
Rather, they have seen for you
    false and worthless oracles.
¹⁵ All who pass your way
    clap their hands at you.
They hiss and shake their heads
    at the daughter of Jerusalem.
“Is this the city of which they said,
    ‘The perfection of beauty,’
    ‘the joy of the whole earth’?”
¹⁶ All your enemies
    opened their mouth wide against you;
    they hissed and gnashed their teeth,
    and say, “We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the day we have waited for;
    we have lived to see it!”
¹⁷ Adonai has done what He planned;
He has fulfilled His word
    that He commanded from days of old.
He has overthrown you without pity,
He enabled the enemy to gloat over you.
He has exalted the horn of your foes.
¹⁸ Their heart cried out to the Lord:
    O wall of the daughter of Zion,
let tears run down
    like a river day and night.
Give yourself no relief,
    your eyes no rest.
¹⁹ Arise! Cry out in the night
    at the beginning of the watches!
Pour out your heart like water
    before the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to Him
    for the life of your children
who faint from hunger
    at the head of every street.
²⁰ Look, Adonai, and consider
    with whom You have dealt so severely!
Should women eat their offspring,
    their healthy newborn infants?
Should kohen and prophet be slain
    in the Sanctuary of the Lord?
²¹ On the ground in the streets
    lie both young and old.
My maidens and my young men
    have fallen by the sword.
You slew them in the day of Your anger.
    You slaughtered them without pity.
²² As on a moed day, You summon
    against me terrors on every side.
On the day of the wrath of Adonai
    no one escaped or survived.
Those whom I bore and raised
    my enemy has destroyed.