How Shall We Sing the Lord's Song?

¹By the waters of Babylon,

there we sat down and wept,

when we remembered Zion.

²On the willows1 there

we hung up our lyres.

³For there our captors

required of us songs,

and our tormentors, mirth, saying,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴How shall we sing the Lord's song

in a foreign land?

⁵If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

let my right hand forget its skill!

⁶Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,

if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jerusalem

above my highest joy!

⁷Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites

the day of Jerusalem,

how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare,

down to its foundations!”

⁸O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,

blessed shall he be who repays you

with what you have done to us!

⁹Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones

and dashes them against the rock!