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Restore Us to Yourself, O Lord

 Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
look, and see our disgrace!
² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our homes to foreigners.
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 Our pursuers are at our necks;^[a]
we are weary; we are given no rest.
⁶ We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria,
to get bread enough.
⁷ Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
and we bear their iniquities.
⁸ Slaves rule over us;
there is none 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 hot as an oven
with the burning heat of famine.
¹¹ Women are raped in Zion,
young women 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 at the mill,
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 For this our heart has become sick,
for these things our eyes have grown dim,
¹⁸ for Mount Zion which lies desolate;
jackals prowl over it.
¹⁹ But you, O Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures to all generations.
²⁰ Why do you forget us forever,
why do you forsake us for so many days?
²¹ Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!
Renew our days as of old—
²² unless you have utterly rejected us,
and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

Footnotes:

1. Lamentations 5:5 Symmachus With a yoke on our necks

Cross references:

1. Lamentations 5:1 : Ps. 89:50
2. Lamentations 5:1 : ch. 3:61
3. Lamentations 5:2 : Ps. 79:1
4. Lamentations 5:5 : [Josh. 10:24]
5. Lamentations 5:6 : [Hos. 12:1]
6. Lamentations 5:6 : [Hos. 12:1]
7. Lamentations 5:7 : Jer. 31:29; Ezek. 18:2
8. Lamentations 5:8 : [Prov. 30:21, 22]
9. Lamentations 5:9 : [Jer. 6:25]
10. Lamentations 5:10 : See ch. 4:8
11. Lamentations 5:10 : [Deut. 32:24]
12. Lamentations 5:12 : See 2 Kgs. 25:19-21
13. Lamentations 5:12 : ch. 4:16
14. Lamentations 5:13 : [Judg. 16:21]
15. Lamentations 5:13 : [Josh. 9:27]
16. Lamentations 5:14 : [See ver. 12 above]; ch. 4:16
17. Lamentations 5:14 : [Isa. 24:8]
18. Lamentations 5:15 : [See ver. 14 above]; [Isa. 24:8]
19. Lamentations 5:15 : [Amos 8:10]
20. Lamentations 5:16 : Ps. 89:39; Jer. 13:18; [ch. 1:1]
21. Lamentations 5:17 : Isa. 1:5
22. Lamentations 5:17 : See ch. 2:11
23. Lamentations 5:18 : [Isa. 34:13]
24. Lamentations 5:19 : Ps. 9:7; 102:12; 145:13
25. Lamentations 5:20 : Ps. 13:1
26. Lamentations 5:21 : Jer. 31:18; [Ps. 80:3, 7, 19]
27. Lamentations 5:22 : Jer. 14:1