New Living Translation

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