The Prayer of Jeremiah the prophet:
Remember, O Lord, what has come upon us: consider and behold our reproach.
Our inheritance is turned over to aliens, our houses to strangers.
We are become like orphans without a father, our mothers are as widows.
We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.
We are dragged by the neck; no rest is given to the weary.
We have given our hand to Egypt and to the Assyrians to get bread enough.
Our fathers have sinned and are not, and we have borne their iniquities.
Slaves have ruled over us; there was none to redeem us from their hand.
We fetched bread at the peril of our lives because of the sword in the desert.
Our skin is scorched as an oven because of the violence of hunger.
They ravished women in Zion and virgins in the cities of Judah.
Princes were hung up by their hands; no respect was shown to the elders.
Young men were shamefully used and boys collapsed under the loads of wood.
The old men have gone from the gates, young men from the choirs of singers.
All joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing is turned into mourning.
The crown is fallen from our head; woe to us because we have sinned.
For this our heart has become sick; therefore our eyes have grown dim.
Because of Mount Zion that is destroyed jackals prowl all over it.
But you, O Lord, will remain for ever, your throne from generation to generation.
Why do you forget us for ever, forsake us for so many long days?
Restore us, Lord, to you and we shall be restored; renew our days as from the beginning.
But you have utterly rejected us, furiously angry against us.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return to the Lord your God.
Very moving and the chant is almost Eastern in feel. I have been reading Wendell Steavenson's book "The weight of a mustard seed" about Irag. How relevant this ancient chant is to our troubled world.
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