Lamentations 5:6-16

6 We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough food to survive.

7 Our ancestors sinned, but they have died— and we are suffering the punishment they deserved!

8 Slaves have now become our masters; there is no one left to rescue us.

9 We hunt for food at the risk of our lives, for violence rules the countryside.

10 The famine has blackened our skin as though baked in an oven.

11 Our enemies rape the women in Jerusalem and the young girls in all the towns of Judah.

12 Our princes are being hanged by their thumbs, and our elders are treated with contempt.

13 Young men are led away to work at millstones, and boys stagger under heavy loads of wood.

14 The elders no longer sit in the city gates; the young men no longer dance and sing.

15 Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.

16 The garlands have fallen from our heads. Weep for us because we have sinned.

Lamentations 5:6-16 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LAMENTATIONS 5

In this chapter are reckoned up the various calamities and distresses of the Jews in Babylon, which the Lord is desired to remember and consider, La 5:1-16; their great concern for the desolation of the temple in particular is expressed, La 5:17,18; and the chapter is concluded with a prayer that God would show favour to them, and turn them to him, and renew their prosperity as of old, though he had rejected them, and been wroth with them, La 5:19-22.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew in Zion.
• [b]. Or The crown has.