PSALM 137

    ¹By Babylon’s streams,

          there we sat, oh we wept,

              when we recalled Zion.

    ²On the poplars there

          we hung up our lyres.

    ³For there our captors had asked of us

          words of song,

    and our plunderers—rejoicing:

          “Sing us from Zion’s songs.”

    ⁴How can we sing a song of the LORD

          on foreign soil?

    ⁵Should I forget you, Jerusalem,

          may my right hand wither.

    ⁶May my tongue cleave to my palate

           if I do not recall

    if I do not set Jerusalem

          above my chief joy.

    ⁷Recall, O LORD, the Edomites,

          on the day of Jerusalem, saying:

    “Raze it, raze it,

          to its foundation!”

    ⁸Daughter of Babylon the despoiler,

          happy who pays you back in kind,

              for what you did to us.

    ⁹Happy who seizes and smashes

          your infants against the rock.