Chapter 5

Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us. Consider and look kindly upon our disgrace.

Our inheritance has been turned over to foreigners; our houses to outsiders.

We have become orphans without a father; our mothers are like widows.

We paid for our drinking water. We acquired our wood for a price.

We were dragged by our necks. Being weary, no rest was given to us.

We have given our hand to Egypt and to the Assyrians, so that we may be satisfied with bread.

Our fathers have sinned, and are not. And we have carried their iniquities.

Servants have become rulers over us. There was no one to redeem us from their hand.

We obtained our bread at the risk of our lives, before the face of the sword, in the wilderness.

Our skin was burned, as if by an oven, before the face of the tempest of the famine.

They humiliated the women in Zion and the virgins in the cities of Judah.

The leaders were suspended by their hand. They were not ashamed before the faces of the elders.

They have sexually abused the adolescents, and the children were corrupted in the wood.

The elders have ceased from the gates, the youths from the choir of the psalms.

The gladness of our heart has failed, our singing has been turned into mourning.

The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned.

Because of this, our heart became gloomy; for this reason, our eyes have been darkened:

because of mount Zion, because it was ruined. Foxes have wandered upon it.

But you, O Lord, shall remain for eternity, your throne from generation to generation.

Why would you forget us forever? Why would you forsake us for a long time?

Convert us, O Lord, to you, and we shall be converted. Renew our days, as from the beginning.

But you have utterly rejected us; you are vehemently angry against us.