NET LAM Chapter 5

5  O Lord, reflect on what has happened to us;

consider and look at our disgrace.

2  Our inheritance is turned over to strangers;

foreigners now occupy our homes.

3  We have become fatherless orphans;

our mothers have become widows.

4  We must pay money for our own water;

we must buy our own wood at a steep price.

5  We are pursued – they are breathing down our necks;

we are weary and have no rest.

6  We have submitted to Egypt and Assyria

in order to buy food to eat.

7  Our forefathers sinned and are dead,

but we suffer their punishment.

8  Slaves rule over us;

there is no one to rescue us from their power.

9  At the risk of our lives we get our food

because robbers lurk in the countryside.

10  Our skin is hot as an oven

due to a fever from hunger.

11  They raped women in Zion,

virgins in the towns of Judah.

12  Princes were hung by their hands;

elders were mistreated.

13  The young men perform menial labor;

boys stagger from their labor.

14  The elders are gone from the city gate;

the young men have stopped playing their music.

15  Our hearts no longer have any joy;

our dancing is turned to mourning.

16  The crown has fallen from our head;

woe to us, for we have sinned!

17  Because of this, our hearts are sick;

because of these things, we can hardly see through our tears.

18  For wild animals are prowling over Mount Zion,

which lies desolate.

19  But you, O Lord, reign forever;

your throne endures from generation to generation.

20  Why do you keep on forgetting us?

Why do you forsake us so long?

21  Bring us back to yourself, O Lord, so that we may return to you;

renew our life as in days before,

22  unless you have utterly rejected us

and are angry with us beyond measure.