Fifth lamentation
1Remember, Yahweh, what has befallen us. Look, and see our disgrace,
2our home handed over to strangers, our inheritance to foreigners.
3We are as orphans, fatherless, and early widowed are our mothers.
4Our drinking water we must buy; for our own wood we have to pay.
5With the yoke stifling our breath, without rest we work to death.
6We have bowed down to Egypt, and to Assyria, just to subsist.
7Our ancestors who sinned are no more but we bear their guilt.
8Slaves rule us, and there is no one to rescue us from their hands.
9We brave the desert heat and the sword just to get our hard-earned food.
10Our skin is hot like a furnace, dried up and shriveled by hunger.
11Ravished are the wives in Zion, the virgins in the towns of Judah.
12Princes are hung up by their hands; elders shown no respect.
13Young men toil at the millstones, boys stagger under heavy loads.
14The old have shunned the city gate, the young, their music.
15From our hearts joy is gone; we danced then, but now we lament.
16The garlands have fallen from our heads. Woe upon us, for we have sinned!
17Over all this our hearts are sick; and our eyes have grown weak:
18for we see Mount Zion desolate; the jackals prowl within.
19You, O Yahweh, forever reign; your throne endures from age to age.
20Why, then, should you abandon us, why forget us for so long a time?
21Lead us to you again, O Lord, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old.
22Have you utterly rejected us? Is there no end to your wrath against us?
