Lamentations

Old Testament · 5 chapters

Five poems of grief over the destruction of Jerusalem.

About Lamentations

Lamentations mourns a real catastrophe: the city burned, the temple destroyed, the people carried away. Four of its five poems are acrostics, imposing careful form on overwhelming grief. It does not rush to resolution. At the exact centre of the middle poem, however, comes the statement that God’s mercies are new every morning — hope placed inside the lament rather than after it.

  • Grief
  • Honest lament
  • Mercy
  • Waiting

Key verses in Lamentations

All 5 chapters of Lamentations

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