A Prayer for Mercy and Restoration

1Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us; consider, and see our reproach.

2Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.

3We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

4Our water have we to drink for money, our wood cometh unto us for a price.

5Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, we have no rest.

6We have given the hand to Egypt, [and] to Asshur, to be satisfied with bread.

7Our fathers have sinned, [and] they are not; and we bear their iniquities.

8Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their hand.

9We have to get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

10Our skin gloweth like an oven, because of the burning heat of the famine.

11They have ravished the women in Zion, the maids in the cities of Judah.

12Princes were hanged up by their hand; the faces of elders were not honoured.

13The young men have borne the mill, and the youths have stumbled under the wood.

14The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.

15The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

16The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, for we have sinned!

17For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes have grown dim,

18Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: foxes walk over it.

19Thou, Jehovah, dwellest for ever; thy throne is from generation to generation.

20Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, dost thou forsake us so long time?

21Turn thou us unto thee, Jehovah, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

22Or is it that thou hast utterly rejected us? Wouldest thou be exceeding wroth against us?