A Prayer for Restoration

1Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us. Consider and look kindly upon our disgrace.

2Our inheritance has been turned over to foreigners; our houses to outsiders.

3We have become orphans without a father; our mothers are like widows.

4We paid for our drinking water. We acquired our wood for a price.

5We were dragged by our necks. Being weary, no rest was given to us.

6We have given our hand to Egypt and to the Assyrians, so that we may be satisfied with bread.

7Our fathers have sinned, and are not. And we have carried their iniquities.

8Servants have become rulers over us. There was no one to redeem us from their hand.

9We obtained our bread at the risk of our lives, before the face of the sword, in the wilderness.

10Our skin was burned, as if by an oven, before the face of the tempest of the famine.

11They humiliated the women in Zion and the virgins in the cities of Judah.

12The leaders were suspended by their hand. They were not ashamed before the faces of the elders.

13They have sexually abused the adolescents, and the children were corrupted in the wood.

14The elders have ceased from the gates, the youths from the choir of the psalms.

15The gladness of our heart has failed, our singing has been turned into mourning.

16The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned.

17Because of this, our heart became gloomy; for this reason, our eyes have been darkened:

18because of mount Zion, because it was ruined. Foxes have wandered upon it.

19But you, O Lord, shall remain for eternity, your throne from generation to generation.

20Why would you forget us forever? Why would you forsake us for a long time?

21Convert us, O Lord, to you, and we shall be converted. Renew our days, as from the beginning.

22But you have utterly rejected us; you are vehemently angry against us.