Psalm 137:3-5

New Catholic Bible

³For it was there that our captors
    asked us to sing them a song,
and, tormenting us, demanded a joyful song:
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
⁴But how could we sing songs of the Lord
    while living in a foreign land?^[a]
⁵^[b]If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    may my right hand fail me.

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Footnotes

Psalm 137:4 The exiles could not bring themselves to sing any of the holy songs while they rested on foreign, unclean soil; that would be a profanation (see Hos 9:3; Am 7:17).
Psalm 137:5 The exiles could not forget Jerusalem and what it symbolized: covenant, temple, God’s presence and kingship, atonement, forgiveness, and reconciliation. They vowed to wait for the redemption promised by God.