Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

137 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down.
    Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
² On the willows in that land,
    we hung up our harps.
³ For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs.
    Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy:
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
⁴ How can we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, Jerusalem,
    let my right hand forget its skill.
⁶ Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don’t remember you,
    if I don’t prefer Jerusalem above my chief joy.
⁷ Remember, Yahweh, against the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem,
    who said, “Raze it!
    Raze it even to its foundation!”
⁸ Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
    he will be happy who repays you,
    as you have done to us.
⁹ Happy shall he be,
    who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.

¹³ What shall I testify to you?
    What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem?
What shall I compare to you,
    that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion?
For your breach is as big as the sea.
    Who can heal you?

¹⁴ Your prophets have seen false and foolish visions for you.
    They have not uncovered your iniquity,
    to reverse your captivity,
    but have seen for you false revelations and causes of banishment.

¹⁵ All that pass by clap their hands at you.
    They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
“Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty,
    the joy of the whole earth’?”

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

¹⁷ Yahweh has done that which he planned.
    He has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old.
He has thrown down,
    and has not pitied.
He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you.
    He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.

¹⁸ Their heart cried to the Lord.
    O wall of the daughter of Zion,
    let tears run down like a river day and night.
Give yourself no relief.
    Don’t let your eyes rest.

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 up your hands toward him for the life of your young children,
    who faint for hunger at the head of every street.

²⁰ “Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus!
    Should the women eat their offspring,
    the children that they held and bounced on their knees?
    Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹ “The youth and the old man 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 called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side.
    There was no one that escaped or remained in the day of Yahweh’s anger.
    My enemy has consumed those whom I have cared for and brought up.