The People of Jerusalem Pray:
5:1 O LORD, reflect on what has happened to us;
consider and look at our disgrace.
5:2 Our inheritance is turned over to strangers;
foreigners now occupy our homes.
5:3 We have become fatherless orphans;
our mothers have become widows.
5:4 We must pay money for our own water;
we must buy our own wood at a steep price.
5:5 We are pursued – they are breathing down our necks;
we are weary and have no rest.
5:6 We have submitted to Egypt and Assyria
in order to buy food to eat.
5:7 Our forefathers sinned and are dead,
but we suffer their punishment.
5:8 Slaves rule over us;
there is no one to rescue us from their power.
5:9 At the risk of our lives we get our food
because robbers lurk in the countryside.
5:10 Our skin is hot as an oven
due to a fever from hunger.
5:11 They raped women in Zion,
virgins in the towns of Judah.
5:12 Princes were hung by their hands;
elders were mistreated.
5:13 The young men perform menial labor;
boys stagger from their labor.
5:14 The elders are gone from the city gate;
the young men have stopped playing their music.
5:15 Our hearts no longer have any joy;
our dancing is turned to mourning.
5:16 The crown has fallen from our head;
woe to us, for we have sinned!
5:17 Because of this, our hearts are sick;
because of these things, we can hardly see through our tears.
5:18 For wild animals are prowling over Mount Zion,
which lies desolate.
5:19 But you, O LORD, reign forever;
your throne endures from generation to generation.
5:20 Why do you keep on forgetting us?
Why do you forsake us so long?
5:21 Bring us back to yourself, O LORD, so that we may return to you;
renew our life as in days before,
5:22 unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.

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