Lamentation 5:1-22

Out of God's will for our life we are left vulnerable and spiritually alone in a dying world. Without the light of the Holy Spirit we no longer clearly see the ways of the Lord and it becomes harder and harder to make decision based on His ways and not mans ways. Repent, return to the Lord, and open your eyes to His goodness and mercy in Christ Jesus!

A Prayer for Restoration

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

Look, and behold our reproach!

2 Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens,

And our houses to foreigners.

3 We have become orphans and waifs,

Our mothers are like widows.

4 We pay for the water we drink,

And our wood comes at a price.

5 They pursue at our heels;

We labor and have no rest.

6 We have given our hand to the Egyptians

And the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers sinned and are no more,

But we bear their iniquities.

8 Servants rule over us;

There is none to deliver us from their hand.

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

Because of the sword in the wilderness.

10 Our skin is hot as an oven,

Because of the fever of famine.

11 They ravished the women in Zion,

The maidens in the cities of Judah.

12 Princes were hung up by their hands,

And elders were not respected.

13 Young men ground at the millstones;

Boys staggered under loads of wood.

14 The elders have ceased gathering at the gate,

And the young men from their music.

15 The joy of our heart has ceased;

Our dance has turned into mourning.

16 The crown has fallen from our head.

Woe to us, for we have sinned!

17 Because of this our heart is faint;

Because of these things our eyes grow dim;

18 Because of Mount Zion which is desolate,

With foxes walking about on it.

19 You, O Lord, remain forever;

Your throne from generation to generation.

20 Why do You forget us forever,

And forsake us for so long a time?

21 Turn us back to You, O Lord, and we will be restored;

Renew our days as of old,

22 Unless You have utterly rejected us,

And are very angry with us!

The NKJV Study Bible says this: The Promised Land had been a gift from the Lord to Abraham. This inheritance was a kind of "down payment" on the future reign of God that would include the restoration of His people to that land. God demonstrated that He owned all nations and that Israel was to be His instrument for blessing all the nations on the earth. Yet in their present condition, the people of Israel seemed to be the most helpless of all peoples. The survivors of the Babylonian siege were reduced to servitude, caught between the Egyptians and the Assyrians. The small harvests that were obtained from the land after the destruction of Jerusalem were vulnerable to nomads from the desert who occasionally took the lives of the people of Judah as well. The suffering of Jerusalem left no one unscathed—women, princes, elders, and young men. This was a time to weep and mourn, not to laugh and dance. The normal zest for life was gone. Death would be better than a horrible existence during the siege of Jerusalem. In one of Jeremiah's earlier messages, he had exhorted the people to turn to God no less than seven times.