Lamentations 5 ({ ΰ} - Alef.) LORD, remember what has happened to us. Pay attention, and look at our shame!

ISV⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ ({ ΰ} - [Alef.]) LORD, remember what has happened to us. Pay attention, and look at our shame! ² ({ α} - [Bet.]) Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, and our homes to foreigners. ³ ({ β} - [Gimmel.]) We are now orphans {— } without fathers {— } and our mothers are like widows. ⁴ ({ γ} - [Daleth.]) We pay to drink our own water, and our own wood is sold to us at high price. ⁵ ({ δ} - [He.]) Our pursuers breathe down our necks; we are weary, but there is no rest for us. ⁶ ({ ε} - [Vav.]) We made a deal with the Egyptians and the Assyrians for the price of food. ⁷ ({ ζ} - [Zayin.]) Our ancestors sinned and no longer exist yet we continue to bear the consequences of their sin. ⁸ ({ η} - [Cheth.]) Slaves rule over us, and no one delivers us from their control. ⁹ ({ θ} - [Teth.]) We risk our lives to obtain our food, facing death in the desert. ¹⁰ ({ ι} - [Yod.]) Our skin blisters as from an oven, due to ravaging blasts of the famine. ¹¹ ({ λ} - [Kaf.]) They have raped women in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah. ¹² ({ μ} - [Lamed.]) Princes they have hung by their hands; elders they have disrespected. ¹³ ({ ξ} - [Mem.]) Our young men must grind grain with a millstone; our youths stumble under the weight of wood. ¹⁴ ({ π} - [Nun.]) Our elders have ceased ruling at the gate; our young men have abandoned their music. ¹⁵ ({ ρ} - [Samek.]) The joy of our hearts has ceased, and our dancing has turned into dirges. ¹⁶ ({ ς} - [Ayin.]) The crown has fallen from our head {— } woe to us, because we have sinned! ¹⁷ ({ τ} - [Peyh.]) This is why our hearts faint, and why our eyes grow dim: ¹⁸ ({ φ} - [Tsade.]) Because Mount Zion is desolate; foxes roam around it. ¹⁹ ({ χ} - [Qof.]) You, LORD, are forever {— } your throne endures from generation to generation. ²⁰ ({ ψ} - [Resh.]) So why have you completely forgotten us, forsaking us for so long? ²¹ ({ ω} - [Shin.]) Restore us to yourself, LORD, so that we may return. Renew our days as before, ²² ({ ϊ} - [Tav.]) unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us without limit.