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5. Appeal for God's Forgiveness

¹ Remember, LORD, what has happened to us;
   look, and see our disgrace.
² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
   our homes to foreigners.
³ We have become fatherless,
   our mothers are widows.
⁴ We must buy the water we drink;
   our wood can be had only at a price.
⁵ Those who pursue us are at our heels;
   we are weary and find no rest.
⁶ We submitted to Egypt and Assyria
   to get enough bread.
⁷ Our ancestors sinned and are no more,
   and we bear their punishment.
⁸ Slaves rule over us,
   and there is no one to free us from their hands.
⁹ We get our bread at the risk of our lives
   because of the sword in the desert.
¹⁰ Our skin is hot as an oven,
   feverish from hunger.
¹¹ Women have been violated in Zion,
   and virgins in the towns of Judah.
¹² Princes have been hung up by their hands;
   elders are shown no respect.
¹³ Young men toil at the millstones;
   boys stagger under loads of wood.
¹⁴ The elders are gone from the city gate;
   the young men have stopped their music.
¹⁵ Joy is gone from our hearts;
   our dancing has turned to mourning.
¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head.
   Woe to us, for we have sinned!
¹⁷ Because of this our hearts are faint,
   because of these things our eyes grow dim
¹⁸ for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
   with jackals prowling over it.

    ¹⁹ You, LORD, reign forever;
   your throne endures from generation to generation.
²⁰ Why do you always forget us?
   Why do you forsake us so long?
²¹ Restore us to yourself, LORD, that we may return;
   renew our days as of old
²² unless you have utterly rejected us
   and are angry with us beyond measure.

Here the Prophet not only speaks in the person of the whole people, but utters also the groans and complaints of each; for this could not have been suitable to the whole Church, as he speaks of fathers and mothers. We hence see that this verse does not apply to the whole body, but to individual members, though every one of the people might have said that widows and orphans were everywhere seen.

Now, this usually happens when a nation is consumed either by pestilence or by war; for in one battle all do not so fall that a whole country becomes full of orphans. But the Prophet sets forth here the orphanage and widowhood occasioned through the continued vengeance of God, for he had not ceased to afflict the people until by degrees they were exhausted. It was, indeed, a sad spectacle to see among the chosen people so many widows, and also so many children deprived of their fathers. It follows, —