[Image: Introduction to Lamentations]
LAMENTATIONS 5
Restore Us to Yourself, O LORD
[1] 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;
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. (ESV)
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