2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers , Our houses to aliens . 3 We have become orphans without a father , Our mothers are like widows . 4 We have to pay for our drinking water , Our wood comes to us at a price . 5 Our pursuers are at our necks ; We are worn out, there is no rest for us. 6 We have submitted e to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread . 7 Our fathers sinned , and are no more ; It is we who have borne their iniquities . 8 Slaves rule over us; There is no one to deliver us from their hand . 9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives Because e of the sword in the wilderness . 10 Our skin has become as hot as an oven , Because e of the burning heat of famine . 11 They ravished the women in Zion , The virgins in the cities of Judah . 12 Princes were hung by their hands ; Elders were not respected . 13 Young men worked at the grinding mill , And youths stumbled under loads of wood . 14 Elders are gone from the gate , Young men from their music .
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Lamentations 5:2-14
Commentary on Lamentations 5:1-16
(Read Lamentations 5:1-16)
Is any afflicted? Let him pray; and let him in prayer pour out his complaint to God. The people of God do so here; they complain not of evils feared, but of evils felt. If penitent and patient under what we suffer for the sins of our fathers, we may expect that He who punishes, will return in mercy to us. They acknowledge, Woe unto us that we have sinned! All our woes are owing to our own sin and folly. Though our sins and God's just displeasure cause our sufferings, we may hope in his pardoning mercy, his sanctifying grace, and his kind providence. But the sins of a man's whole life will be punished with vengeance at last, unless he obtains an interest in Him who bare our sins in his own body on the tree.