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[1] Remember, LORD, what has come on us. Look, and see our reproach.

[2] Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to aliens.

[3] We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are as widows.

[4] We have drunken our water for money. Our wood is sold to us.

[5] Our pursuers are on our necks. We are weary, and have no rest.

[6] We have given our hands to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

[7] Our fathers sinned, and are no more. We have borne their iniquities.

[8] Servants rule over us. There is no one to deliver us out of their hand.

[9] We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

[10] Our skin is black like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine.

[11] They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.

[12] Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honored.

[13] The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood.

[14] The elders have ceased from the gate, and the young men from their music.

[15] The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning.

[16] The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

[17] For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim.

[18] For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate. The foxes walk on it.

[19] You, LORD, remain forever. Your throne is from generation to generation.

[20] Why do you forget us forever, and forsake us for so long a time?

[21] Turn us to yourself, LORD, and we will be turned. Renew our days as of old.

[22] But you have utterly rejected us. You are very angry against us.

Lamentations — Chapters