Lamentations 5

Prayer for Restoration ¹LORD, remember what has happened to us. See how we have been disgraced! ² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. ³ We are orphaned and fatherless. Our mothers are widowed. ⁴ We have to pay for water to drink, and even firewood is expensive. ⁵ Those who pursue us are at our heels; we are exhausted but are given no rest. ⁶ We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough food to survive. ⁷ Our ancestors sinned, but they have died— and we are suffering the punishment they deserved!

⁸Slaves have now become our masters; there is no one left to rescue us. ⁹ We hunt for food at the risk of our lives, for violence rules the countryside. ¹⁰ The famine has blackened our skin as though baked in an oven. ¹¹ Our enemies rape the women in Jerusalem Hebrew in Zion. and the young girls in all the towns of Judah. ¹² Our princes are being hanged by their thumbs, and our elders are treated with contempt. ¹³ Young men are led away to work at millstones, and boys stagger under heavy loads of wood. ¹⁴ The elders no longer sit in the city gates; the young men no longer dance and sing. ¹⁵ Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning. ¹⁶ The garlands have Or The crown has. fallen from our heads. Weep for us because we have sinned. ¹⁷ Our hearts are sick and weary, and our eyes grow dim with tears. ¹⁸ For Jerusalem Hebrew Mount Zion. is empty and desolate, a place haunted by jackals.

¹⁹But LORD, you remain the same forever! Your throne continues from generation to generation. ²⁰ Why do you continue to forget us? Why have you abandoned us for so long? ²¹ Restore us, O LORD, and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had! ²² Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?