Dual Panel1LORD, remember everything that has happened to us. See all the sorrows we bear!
2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.
3We are orphaned and fatherless. Our mothers are widowed.
4We have to pay for water to drink, and even firewood is expensive.
5Those who pursue us are at our heels; we are exhausted but are given no rest.
6We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough food to survive.
7It was our ancestors who sinned, but they died before the hand of judgment fell. We have suffered the punishment they deserved!
8Slaves have now become our masters; there is no one left to rescue us.
9We must hunt for food in the wilderness at the risk of our lives.
10Because of the famine, our skin has been blackened as though baked in an oven.
11Our enemies rape the women and young girls in Jerusalem and throughout the towns of Judah.
12Our princes are being hanged by their thumbs, and the old men are treated with contempt.
13The young men are led away to work at millstones, and the children stagger under heavy loads of wood.
14The old men no longer sit in the city gates; the young men no longer dance and sing.
15The joy of our hearts has ended; our dancing has turned to mourning.
16The garlands have fallen from our heads. Disaster has fallen upon us because we have sinned.
17Our hearts are sick and weary, and our eyes grow dim with tears.
18For Jerusalem is empty and desolate, a place haunted by jackals.
19But LORD, you remain the same forever! Your throne continues from generation to generation.
20Why do you continue to forget us? Why have you forsaken us for so long?
21Restore us, O LORD, and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had!
22Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?