1
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
2
There on the poplars we hung our harps,
3
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tomentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
4
How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?
5
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
6
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.
7
Rememer, O LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried, "tear it down to its foundations!"
8
O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us -
9
he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.