Lamentations 5:1-22
5 * Remember, O Jehovah, what has happened to us.+ Do look and see our reproach.+
2 Our own hereditary possession has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.+
3 We have become mere orphans without a father.+ Our mothers are like widows.+
4 For money* we have had to drink our own water.+ For a price our own wood comes in.
5 Close onto our neck we have been pursued.+ We have grown weary. No rest has been left for us.+
6 To Egypt+ we have given the hand;+ to As·syrʹi·a,+ in order to get satisfaction with bread.
7 Our forefathers are the ones that have sinned.+ They are no more. As for us, it is their errors that we have had to bear.+
8 Mere servants have ruled over us.+ There is no one tearing us away from their hand.+
9 At the risk of our soul we bring in our bread,+ because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our very skin has grown hot just like a furnace, because of the pangs of hunger.+
11 The wives* in Zion they have humbled,+ the virgins in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes themselves have been hanged by just their hand.+ The faces of even old men have not been honored.+
13 Even young men have lifted up a hand mill itself,+ and under the wood mere boys have stumbled.+
14 Old men themselves have ceased even out of the gate,+ young men from their instrumental music.+
15 The exultation of our heart has ceased. Our dancing has been changed into mere mourning.+
16 The crown of our head has fallen.+ Woe, now, to us, because we have sinned!+
17 On this account our heart has become ill.+ On account of these things our eyes have grown dim,+
18 On account of Zion’s mountain that is desolated;+ foxes themselves have walked on it.+
19 As for you, O Jehovah, to time indefinite you will sit.+ Your throne is for generation after generation.+
20 Why is it that forever you forget us,+ that you leave us for the length of days?+
21 Bring us back,+ O Jehovah, to yourself, and we shall readily come back. Bring new days for us as in the long ago.+
22 However, you have positively rejected us.+ You have been indignant toward us very much.+
Footnotes
^ This chapter is not an alphabetic acrostic like each of the preceding four chapters, but it does have 22 vss to correspond to the 22 letters of the Heb. alphabet.
^ Or, “silver.”
^ Or, “women.”
