Lament of the Exiles

1 By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and wept
when we remembered Zion.(A)
2 There we hung up our lyres
on the poplar trees,(B)
3 for our captors there asked us for songs,
and our tormentors, for rejoicing:
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”(C)
4
How can we sing the Lord’s song
on foreign soil?(D)
5
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.(E)
6
May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!(F)
7
Remember, Lord, what the Edomites said
that day(a) at Jerusalem:
“Destroy it! Destroy it
down to its foundations!”(G)
8
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who pays you back
what you have done to us.(H)
9
Happy is he who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rocks.(I)

Footnotes:

a. Psalm 137:7: The day Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 b.c.

Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers.