Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us: Behold, and see our reproach.
Our inheritance is turned unto strangers, Our houses unto aliens.
We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold unto us.
Our pursuers are upon our necks: We are weary, and have no rest.
We have given the hand to the Egyptians, And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
Our fathers sinned, and are not; And we have borne their iniquities.
Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.
We get our bread at the peril of our lives, Because of the sword of the wilderness.
Our skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.
They ravished the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah.
Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honored.
The young men bare the mill; And the children stumbled under the wood.
The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music.
The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.
The crown is fallen from our head: Woe unto us! for we have sinned.
For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim;
For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk upon it.
Thou, O Jehovah, abidest for ever; Thy throne is from generation to generation.
Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, And forsake us so long time?
Turn thou us unto thee, O Jehovah, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old.
But thou hast utterly rejected us; Thou art very wroth against us.
Canonical academic citations for Lamentations 5 (ASV) — copy in your preferred format.
Lamentations 5 (ASV). Prime Bible, accessed July 22, 2026. https://primebible.com/asv/lamentations/5.
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A communal prayer recounts disgrace—land seized, hunger, slavery, rape, and mockery. The people confess sin and beg the eternal LORD to remember them, restore their fortunes, and not reject them forever.
Five laments mourning the destruction of Jerusalem.
Lamentations 5 is presented with the full Hebrew interlinear, Strong's numbers, and verse-by-verse cross-references on Prime Bible — a free, nonprofit Bible study platform.