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Lament over the Destruction of Jerusalem

137 [a]By the waters[b] of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion.
On the willows[c] there
    we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How shall we sing the Lord’s song
    in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
    above my highest joy!

Remember, O Lord, against the E′domites
    the day of Jerusalem,
how they said, “Raze it, raze it!
    Down to its foundations!”
O daughter of Babylon, you devastator![d]
    Happy shall he be who requites you
    with what you have done to us!
Happy shall he be who takes your little ones
    and dashes them against the rock!

Footnotes

  1. 137 This psalm breathes the spirit of sadness and homesickness of the Israelite in exile in Babylon.
  2. Psalm 137:1 Heb streams
  3. Psalm 137:2 Or poplars
  4. Psalm 137:8 Or you who are devastated

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