Psalm 137 (ESV)

The Pain of Separation

1: By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.

2: On the willows there we hung up our lyres.

3: For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

4: How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?

The Heart of Remembrance

5: If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!

6: Let 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!

The Wrath of Divine Vengeance

7: Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!”

8: O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!

9: Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!