Chapter 5

  Keep in mind, O Lord, what has come to us: take note and see our shame.  

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  Our heritage is given up to men of strange lands, our houses to those who are not our countrymen.  

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  We are children without fathers, our mothers are like widows.  

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  We give money for a drink of water, we get our wood for a price.  

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  Our attackers are on our necks: overcome with weariness, we have no rest.  

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  We have given our hands to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians so that we might have enough bread.  

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  Our fathers were sinners and are dead; and the weight of their evil-doing is on us.  

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  Servants are ruling over us, and there is no one to make us free from their hands.  

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  We put our lives in danger to get our bread, because of the sword of the waste land.  

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  Our skin is heated like an oven because of our burning heat from need of food.  

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  They took by force the women in Zion, the virgins in the towns of Judah.  

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  Their hands put princes to death by hanging: the faces of old men were not honoured.  

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  The young men were crushing the grain, and the boys were falling under the wood.  

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  The old men are no longer seated in the doorway, and the music of the young men has come to an end.  

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  The joy of our hearts is ended; our dancing is changed into sorrow.  

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  The crown has been taken from our head: sorrow is ours, for we are sinners.  

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  Because of this our hearts are feeble; for these things our eyes are dark;  

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  Because of the mountain of Zion which is a waste; jackals go over it.  

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  You, O Lord, are seated as King for ever; the seat of your power is eternal.  

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  Why have we gone from your memory for ever? why have you been turned away from us for so long?  

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  Make us come back to you, O Lord, and let us be turned; make our days new again as in the past.  

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  But you have quite given us up; you are full of wrath against us.  

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