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