✧Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us. Look and see our disgrace! ✧2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners. ✧3We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows. ✧4We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price. ✧5We are closely pursued; we are weary and find no rest. ✧6We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread. ✧7Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their punishment. ✧8Slaves rule over us; there is no one to deliver us from their hands. ✧9We get our bread at the risk of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness. ✧10Our skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger. ✧11Women have been ravished in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah. ✧12Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect. ✧13Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood. ✧14The elders have left the city gate; the young men have stopped their music. ✧15Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning. ✧16The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned! ✧17Because of this, our hearts are faint; because of these, our eyes grow dim— ✧18because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate, patrolled by foxes. ✧19You, O LORD, reign forever; Your throne endures from generation to generation. ✧20Why have You forgotten us forever? Why have You forsaken us for so long? ✧21Restore us to Yourself, O LORD, so we may return; renew our days as of old, ✧22unless You have utterly rejected us and remain angry with us beyond measure.