| King James Bible | New Living Translation |
| 1Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. | 1LORD, remember what has happened to us. See how we have been disgraced! |
| 2Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. | 2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. |
| 3We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows. | 3We are orphaned and fatherless. Our mothers are widowed. |
| 4We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us. | 4We have to pay for water to drink, and even firewood is expensive. |
| 5Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest. | 5Those who pursue us are at our heels; we are exhausted but are given no rest. |
| 6We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. | 6We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough food to survive. |
| 7Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities. | 7Our ancestors sinned, but they have died— and we are suffering the punishment they deserved! |
| 8Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand. | 8Slaves have now become our masters; there is no one left to rescue us. |
| 9We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness. | 9We hunt for food at the risk of our lives, for violence rules the countryside. |
| 10Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine. | 10The famine has blackened our skin as though baked in an oven. |
| 11They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah. | 11Our enemies rape the women in Jerusalem and the young girls in all the towns of Judah. |
| 12Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured. | 12Our princes are being hanged by their thumbs, and our elders are treated with contempt. |
| 13They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood. | 13Young men are led away to work at millstones, and boys stagger under heavy loads of wood. |
| 14The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick. | 14The elders no longer sit in the city gates; the young men no longer dance and sing. |
| 15The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. | 15Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning. |
| 16The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned! | 16The garlands have fallen from our heads. Weep for us because we have sinned. |
| 17For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim. | 17Our hearts are sick and weary, and our eyes grow dim with tears. |
| 18Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it. | 18For Jerusalem is empty and desolate, a place haunted by jackals. |
| 19Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation. | 19But LORD, you remain the same forever! Your throne continues from generation to generation. |
| 20Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time? | 20Why do you continue to forget us? Why have you abandoned us for so long? |
| 21Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. | 21Restore us, O LORD, and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had! |
| 22But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us. | 22Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still? |
| King James Bible, text courtesy of BibleProtector.com. | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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