By Flowing Streams in Babylon

1 By flowing streams in Babylon, when we remembered Zion there, we sat down and we wept in grief; 2 on willows there we hung our lyres. 3 For there our captors called for songs, our cruel tormentors asked for mirth. They called for us to sing to them: “Come, sing us one of Zion’s songs!” 4 But how can we the LORD’s song sing, when we are in a foreign land? 5 If I forget Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! 6 O let my tongue to my palate cleave if I do not remember you, if I set not Jerusalem above my greatest, highest joy. 7 Remember Edom’s sons, O LORD, who uttered in Jerus’lem’s day. “O lay it bare, O lay it bare! Destroy down to the ground its base.” 8 O Bab’lon’s daughter, doomed to die, blest be the one repaying you. Blest they who take your little ones and dash them cruelly ’gainst the rock! – Trinity Psalter Hymnal, alt.