Read the Bible

¹ Remember, Adonai, what has happened to us;
look, and see our disgrace.
² The land we possessed has been passed on to strangers,
our homes to foreigners.
³ We have become fatherless orphans,
our mothers now are widows.
⁴ We have to pay to drink our own water;
we have to buy our own wood.
⁵ The yoke is on our necks; we are persecuted;
we toil to exhaustion but are given no rest.
⁶ We made pacts with Egypt and Ashur
to get enough food.
⁷ Our ancestors sinned and no longer exist;
we bear the weight of their guilt.
⁸ We are ruled by slaves,
and there is no one to save us from their power.
⁹ We get our food at the peril of our lives
because of the sword in the desert.
¹⁰ Our skins are as black as a furnace
because of the searing blasts of famine.
¹¹ They have raped the women of Tziyon,
virgins in the cities of Y'hudah.
¹² Princes are hung up by their hands,
leaders receive no respect.
¹³ Young men are compelled to grind at the mill,
boys stagger under loads of wood.
¹⁴ The old men have deserted the city gate,
the young men have given up their music.
¹⁵ Joy has vanished from our hearts,
our dancing has turned into mourning.
¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our heads.
Woe to us! for we have sinned.
¹⁷ This is why our hearts are sick;
this is why our eyes grow dim —
¹⁸ it's because of Mount Tziyon, so wasted
that jackals have overrun it.
¹⁹ You, Adonai, reign forever;
your throne endures through all generations.
²⁰ Why do you never remember us?
Why abandon us for so long a time?
²¹ Adonai, turn us back to you; and we will come back;
renew our days, as they were in the past —
²² unless you have totally rejected us
in a fury that knows no limits.

[Adonai, turn us back to you; and we will come back;
renew our days, as they were in the past.]