5. Our pursuers are upon our necks [like a yoke]; we are weary and are allowed no rest.
6. We have given the hand [as a pledge of fidelity and submission] to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians [merely] to get food to satisfy [our hunger].
7. Our fathers sinned and are no more, and we have borne their iniquities. [Isa. 65:7; Jer. 16:11-12; 31:29; Ezek. 18:2-4.]
8. Servants and slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us out of their hands. [Neh. 5:15.]
9. We get our bread at the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness [the wild Arabs, who may attack if we venture into the fields to reap our harvests].
10. Our skin glows and is parched as from [the heat of] an oven because of the burning heat of [the fever of] famine.
11. They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.
12. They hung princes by their hands; the persons of elders were not respected.
13. Young men carried millstones, and boys fell [staggering] under [burdens of] wood.