18 Only the living, O Lord, can offer you praise and acknowledge your justice, even though they may be suffering greatly, bent and weak, hungry and with failing eyesight.
19 “O Lord our God, we pray to you for mercy, but not because of any good things done by our ancestors and our kings.
20 You turned your anger and wrath against us, just as you had threatened to do when your servants the prophets spoke your word to us and said,
21 ‘Bend your backs and serve the king of Babylonia, and you can remain in the land that I gave to your ancestors.
22 But if you refuse to obey my command to serve him,
23 I will bring to an end every sound of joy and celebration in the towns of Judah and in Jerusalem. Even the happy sounds of wedding feasts will no longer be heard. The whole land will be desolate and uninhabited.’
24 “But we did not obey your command to serve the king of Babylonia, so you carried out the threat that you had made when you spoke through your servants the prophets, when you said that the bones of our kings and of our ancestors would be taken from their tombs and scattered.