5:1 LORD, remember what has happened to us. See how we have been disgraced!
5:2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.
5:3 We are orphaned and fatherless. Our mothers are widowed.
5:4 We have to pay for water to drink, and even firewood is expensive.
5:5 Those who pursue us are at our heels; we are exhausted but are given no rest.
5:6 We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough food to survive.
5:7 Our ancestors sinned, but they have died--and we are suffering the punishment they deserved!
5:8 Slaves have now become our masters; there is no one left to rescue us.
5:9 We hunt for food at the risk of our lives, for violence rules the countryside.
5:10 The famine has blackened our skin as though baked in an oven.
5:11 Our enemies rape the women in Jerusalem and the young girls in all the towns of Judah.
5:12 Our princes are being hanged by their thumbs, and our elders are treated with contempt.
5:13 Young men are led away to work at millstones, and boys stagger under heavy loads of wood.
5:14 The elders no longer sit in the city gates; the young men no longer dance and sing.
5:15 Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.
5:16 The garlands have fallen from our heads. Weep for us because we have sinned.
5:17 Our hearts are sick and weary, and our eyes grow dim with tears.
5:18 For Jerusalem is empty and desolate, a place haunted by jackals.
5:19 But LORD, you remain the same forever! Your throne continues from generation to generation.
5:20 Why do you continue to forget us? Why have you abandoned us for so long?
5:21 Restore us, O LORD, and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had!
5:22 Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?
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