A Prayer for Restoration

¹Remember, O Lord , what has come upon us;

look, and see our reproach!

²Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,

our homes to foreigners.

³We have become orphans and fatherless;

our mothers are like widows.

⁴We must pay for the water we drink;[#Isa 3:1]

our wood is sold to us.

⁵Our pursuers are at our necks;

we labor and have no rest.

⁶We have given our hand to Egypt and to Assyria,[#Hos 9:3; 12:1]

to be satisfied with bread.

⁷Our fathers sinned and are no more,[#Jer 16:12; 31:29]

but we bear their iniquities.

⁸Slaves rule over us;

there is no one to deliver us from their hand.

⁹We get our bread at the peril of our lives,

because of the sword in the wilderness.

¹⁰Our skin is hot as an oven,[#Job 30:30; La 4:8]

because of the terrible famine.

¹¹They ravished the women in Zion,[#Isa 13:16; Zec 14:2]

the virgins in the cities of Judah.

¹²Princes were hung up by their hands,

the faces of elders were not honored.

¹³Young men ground at the millstones;[#Jdg 16:21]

boys staggered under loads of wood.

¹⁴The elders have left the city gate,

the young men stopped their music.

¹⁵The joy of our hearts has ceased;

our dancing has turned into mourning.

¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head;[#Ps 89:39; Jer 13:18]

woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹⁷For this our heart is faint;[#Isa 1:5; La 2:11]

for these things our eyes grow dim;

¹⁸because of Mount Zion, which is desolate,[#Mic 3:12]

with foxes walking upon it.

¹⁹You, O Lord , remain forever;[#Ps 45:6]

Your throne endures from generation to generation.

²⁰Why do You forget us forever,

and forsake us for so long a time?

²¹Restore us to Yourself, O Lord , that we may return![#Ps 80:3; Jer 31:18]

Renew our days as of old,

²²unless You have utterly rejected us,

and are very angry with us.