Psalm 137

Beside the Rivers of Babylon

¹Beside the rivers of Babylon,[#137:1 Many of the were in fact canals running off the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.]

there we sat, and, yes, we wept as we remembered Zion.

²There we hung up our lyres on the willows,

³because there our captors asked us for words of a song,

and our tormentors asked for a happy song:

“Sing for us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴How can we sing a song of the Lord on foreign soil?

⁵If I forget you, Jerusalem,

may my right hand forget how to play music.

⁶May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth

if I do not remember you,

if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my highest joy.

⁷Remember the day of Jerusalem, O Lord ,

against the descendants of Edom who said,

“Tear it down, tear it down to its foundations!”

⁸Daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,

how blessed is the one who repays you

with the same deeds you did against us.

⁹How blessed is the one who seizes your children

and dashes them against the cliff.