Bible Society of South Africa

Season after Pentecost: Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

First reading and Psalm

The Sorrows of Jerusalem

1How lonely lies Jerusalem, once so full of people!

Once honoured by the world, she is now like a widow;

The noblest of cities has fallen into slavery.

2All night long she cries; tears run down her cheeks.

Of all her former friends, not one is left to comfort her.

Her allies have betrayed her and all are now against her.

3Judah's people are helpless slaves, forced away from home.

They live in other lands, with no place to call their own —

Surrounded by enemies, with no way to escape.

4No one comes to the Temple now to worship on the holy days.

The young women who sang there suffer, and the priests can only groan.

The city gates stand empty, and Zion is in agony.

5Her enemies succeeded; they hold her in their power.

The LORD has made her suffer for all her many sins;

Her children have been captured and taken away.

6The splendour of Jerusalem is a thing of the past.

Her leaders are like deer that are weak from hunger,

Whose strength is almost gone as they flee from the hunters.

Lamentations 1:1-6GNBOpen in Bible reader

19The thought of my pain, my homelessness, is bitter poison;

20I think of it constantly and my spirit is depressed.

21Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing:

22The LORD's unfailing love and mercy still continue,

23Fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise.

24The LORD is all I have, and so I put my hope in him.

25The LORD is good to everyone who trusts in him,

26So it is best for us to wait in patience — to wait for him to save us —

Lamentations 3:19-26GNBOpen in Bible reader

A Lament of Israelites in Exile

1By the rivers of Babylon we sat down;

there we wept when we remembered Zion.

2On the willows near by

we hung up our harps.

3Those who captured us told us to sing;

they told us to entertain them:

“Sing us a song about Zion.”

4How can we sing a song to the LORD

in a foreign land?

5May I never be able to play the harp again

if I forget you, Jerusalem!

6May I never be able to sing again

if I do not remember you,

if I do not think of you as my greatest joy!

7Remember, LORD, what the Edomites did

the day Jerusalem was captured.

Remember how they kept saying,

“Tear it down to the ground!”

8Babylon, you will be destroyed.

Happy are those who pay you back

for what you have done to us —

9who take your babies

and smash them against a rock.

Psalms 137:1-9GNBOpen in Bible reader
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