1Remember , O LORD , what is come upon us: consider , and behold our reproach . 2Our inheritance is turned to strangers , our houses to aliens .
The Consequences of Sin
3We are orphans and fatherless , our mothers are as widows . 4We have drunken our water for money ; our wood is sold unto us. 5Our necks are under persecution : we labour , and have no rest .
The Depth of Despair
6We have given the hand to the Egyptians , and to the Assyrians , to be satisfied with bread . 7Our fathers have sinned , and are not ; and we have borne their iniquities . 8Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand . 9We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness . 10Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine .
A Call for Divine Intervention
11They ravished the women in Zion , and the maids in the cities of Judah . 12Princes are hanged up by their hand : the faces of elders were not honoured . 13They took the young men to grind , and the children fell under the wood . 14The elders have ceased from the gate , the young men from their musick . 15The joy of our heart is ceased ; our dance is turned into mourning . 16The crown is fallen from our head : woe unto us, that we have sinned !
The Assurance of God's Faithfulness
17For this our heart is faint ; for these things our eyes are dim . 18Because of the mountain of Zion , which is desolate , the foxes walk upon it. 19Thou, O LORD , remainest for ever ; thy throne from generation to generation . 20Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever , and forsake us so long time ? 21Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD , and we shall be turned ; renew our days as of old . 22But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.