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¹ REMEMBER, O LORD, what has come upon us; behold, and see our reproach.² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to aliens.³ We have become orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.⁴ We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold to us.⁵ Our necks are under yokes; we labor, and have no rest.⁶ The Egyptians gave a helping hand, and we looked to the Assyrians to provide bread.⁷ Our fathers have sinned, and are no more; and we have borne their iniquities.⁸ Servants rule over us; there is none to deliver us out of their hands.⁹ We get our bread with the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.¹⁰ Our skin has shriveled as though burned in an oven because of the suffering of famine.¹¹ Women are ravished in Zion, and virgins in the cities of Judah.¹² Princes are hanged up by their hands; the faces of the elders are not honored.¹³ The young men grind the mill, and the youths stumble under loads of wood.¹⁴ The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their joy.¹⁵ The joy of our heart is 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 Because mount Zion is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.¹⁹ But thou, O LORD, dost endure for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.²⁰ Therefore do not forget us for ever, nor forsake us for so long a time.²¹ Bring us back to thee, O LORD, and we shall be restored; renew our days as of old.²² For thou hast utterly rejected us; thou hast been exceedingly angry against us.