19. For it is not according to the righteousness of our fathers that we pour out our petitions and beg mercy in your sight, O Lord our God,
20. but because you have sent your wrath and your fury upon us, just as you have spoken by the hand of your children the prophets, saying:
21. "Thus says the Lord, 'Bow down your shoulder and your neck, and do work for the king of Babylon, and settle in the land which I gave to your fathers,
22. because, if you will not listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to serve the king of Babylon, I will cause you to depart from the cities of Judah and from the gates of Jerusalem.
23. And I will take away from you the voice of cheerfulness and the voice of joy, and the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, and all the land will be without any trace of its inhabitants.' "
24. And they did not listen to your voice, that they should serve the king of Babylon, and so you have fulfilled your words, which you spoke by the hands of your children the prophets, so that the bones of our kings and the bones of our fathers would be carried away from their place.
25. And, behold, they have been cast out into the heat of the sun and the frost of the night, and they have died by means of grievous evils, by famine, and by the sword, and by banishment.
26. And you have set up the temple, in which your name itself was called upon, just as it is on this day, because of the iniquity of the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
27. And you have accomplished in us, O Lord our God, according to all your goodness and according to all your great mercy,