Chapter 5

Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us; consider, and see our reproach.

Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.

We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

Our water have we to drink for money, our wood cometh unto us for a price.

Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, we have no rest.

We have given the hand to Egypt, [and] to Asshur, to be satisfied with bread.

Our fathers have sinned, [and] they are not; and we bear their iniquities.

Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their hand.

We have to get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

Our skin gloweth like an oven, because of the burning heat of the famine.

They have ravished the women in Zion, the maids in the cities of Judah.

Princes were hanged up by their hand; the faces of elders were not honoured.

The young men have borne the mill, and the youths have stumbled under the wood.

The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.

The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, for we have sinned!

For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes have grown dim,

Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: foxes walk over it.

Thou, Jehovah, dwellest for ever; thy throne is from generation to generation.

Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, dost thou forsake us so long time?

Turn thou us unto thee, Jehovah, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

Or is it that thou hast utterly rejected us? Wouldest thou be exceeding wroth against us?