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2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our houses to foreigners.
3 We have become orphans and fatherless;
our mothers are widows.
4 We must buy the water we drink;
our wood comes at a price.
5 Our pursuers are close on our heels;
we are weary and find no rest.
6 We have submitted to Egypt and Assyria
to get enough bread.
7 Our fathers sinned; now they are no more,
but we bear their punishment.
8 Slaves rule over us;
there is no one to deliver us from their hands.
9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives
because of the sword in the wilderness.
10 Our skin is as hot as an oven
with the burning fever of hunger.
11 Women are raped in Zion,
and maidens in the cities of Judah.
12 Princes are hung up by their hands;
elders are shown no respect.
13 Young men are forced to grind at millstones;
boys stagger under loads of wood.
14 The elders are gone from the city gate;
the young men have stopped making their music.
15 Joy has left our hearts;
our dancing has turned into mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this, our hearts are faint;
because of these things our eyes have grown dim:
18 because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
with jackals prowling around over it.
19 “You, O Lord, reign forever;
Your Throne endures from generation to generation.
20 Why have You forgotten us forever?
Why have you forsaken us for so long?
21 Restore us back to You, O Lord, so we may return;
renew our days as of old,
22 unless You have utterly rejected us,
and remain intensely angry with us!