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Lamentations 5

Lamentations 5 Summary, Context, and Full Chapter

Lamentations 5 is a communal prayer from the ruins of Jerusalem. It lays out suffering, loss, and shame with honesty, then turns to the Lord for mercy. The chapter holds grief and faith together as the people ask God to remember, restore, and renew them.

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What happens in Lamentations 5?

The chapter describes the deep distress of Judah after judgment has fallen. The people speak of lost property, vulnerable families, hard labor, hunger, violence, and the collapse of joy and dignity. They also acknowledge sin as part of their condition. In the middle of the lament, the people confess that the Lord still reigns forever. The chapter ends with a plea for God to restore them, asking for renewed life while still facing the possibility of ongoing rejection.

This final chapter closes the book with a prayer rather than a report. After four chapters of mourning over Jerusalem's destruction, the voice here represents the suffering community before God. It gathers the pain of the exile and turns it into a direct appeal for mercy, matching the book's movement from lament to hopeful dependence on the Lord.

Themes to notice

  • Corporate griefThe whole community speaks together about loss, humiliation, and the cost of judgment.
  • Confession of sinThe people connect their suffering with guilt and acknowledge that their trouble is not random.
  • Prayer for renewalThe chapter ends by asking the Lord to bring them back, restore them, and renew their days.

Questions for Lamentations 5

  • What kinds of loss and suffering are named in this prayer, and why are they important?
  • How does the confession of sin shape the way the people understand their situation?
  • What does the final plea ask God to do, and how does it express hope in the middle of sorrow?

Read the full text of Lamentations 5 below, then open it in the reader to highlight, take notes, or ask follow-up Bible questions. No account is required to read.

Lamentations 5

A Prayer for Restoration

1Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us.

Look and see our disgrace!

2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,

our houses to foreigners.

3We have become fatherless orphans;

our mothers are widows.

4We must buy the water we drink;

our wood comes at a price.

5We are closely pursued;

we are weary and find no rest.

6We submitted to Egypt and Assyria

to get enough bread.

7Our fathers sinned and are no more,

but we bear their punishment.

8Slaves rule over us;

there is no one to deliver us from their hands.

9We get our bread at the risk of our lives

because of the sword in the wilderness.

10Our skin is as hot as an oven

with fever from our hunger.

11Women have been ravished in Zion,

virgins in the cities of Judah.

12Princes have been hung up by their hands;

elders receive no respect.

13Young men toil at millstones;

boys stagger under loads of wood.

14The elders have left the city gate;

the young men have stopped their music.

15Joy has left our hearts;

our dancing has turned to mourning.

16The crown has fallen from our head.

Woe to us, for we have sinned!

17Because of this, our hearts are faint;

because of these, our eyes grow dim—

18because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate,

patrolled by foxes.

19You, O LORD, reign forever;

Your throne endures from generation to generation.

20Why have You forgotten us forever?

Why have You forsaken us for so long?

21Restore us to Yourself, O LORD, so we may return;

renew our days as of old,

22unless You have utterly rejected us

and remain angry with us beyond measure.

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