Lamentations 5:4-14

4 Our water for money we have drunk, Our wood for a price doth come.

5 For our neck we have been pursued, We have laboured -- there hath been no rest for us.

6 [To] Egypt we have given a hand, [To] Asshur, to be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers have sinned -- they are not, We their iniquities have borne.

8 Servants have ruled over us, A deliverer there is none from their hand.

9 With our lives we bring in our bread, Because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin as an oven hath been burning, Because of the raging of the famine.

11 Wives in Zion they have humbled, Virgins -- in cities of Judah.

12 Princes by their hand have been hanged, The faces of elders have not been honoured.

13 Young men to grind they have taken, And youths with wood have stumbled.

14 The aged from the gate have ceased, Young men from their song.

Lamentations 5:4-14 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.