Read the Bible

¹ Remember, LORD, what has come on us: Look, and see our reproach. ² Our inheritance is turned to strangers, Our houses to aliens. ³ We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows. ⁴ We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold to us. ⁵ Our pursuers are on our necks: We are weary, and have no rest. ⁶ We have given the hand to the Mitzrim, To the Ashshur, to be satisfied with bread. ⁷ Our fathers sinned, and are no more; We have borne their iniquities. ⁸ Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand. ⁹ We get our bread at the peril of our lives, Because of the sword of the wilderness. ¹⁰ Our skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine. ¹¹ They ravished the women in Tziyon, The virgins in the cities of Yehudah. ¹² Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of Zakenim were not honored. ¹³ The young men bare the mill; The children stumbled under the wood. ¹⁴ The Zakenim have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music. ¹⁵ The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning. ¹⁶ The crown is 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 For the mountain of Tziyon, which is desolate: The foxes walk on it. ¹⁹ You, LORD, abide forever; Your throne is from generation to generation. ²⁰ Why do you forget us forever, [And] forsake us so long time? ²¹ Turn you us to you, LORD, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old. ²² But you have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us.