Lamentations

The book of Lamentations is a poignant collection of poetic laments mourning the destruction of Jerusalem and the suffering of God’s people. Written in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile, it captures grief, sorrow, and the consequences of sin while also expressing deep trust in God’s mercy and faithfulness. Lamentations combines raw emotion with profound spiritual insight, showing how believers can bring their pain before God.

This book emphasizes the reality of judgment and the importance of repentance, but it also highlights hope and restoration. Even in the midst of devastation, God’s steadfast love and compassion remain, offering comfort and the promise of renewal. Lamentations invites reflection on the seriousness of sin, the consequences of turning from God, and the enduring nature of His mercy.

Lamentations encourages readers to express their struggles honestly to God, seek His forgiveness, and trust in His faithfulness. It provides a model for prayer, reflection, and hope even in the darkest times.

Explore the book of Lamentations to understand God’s justice, experience His mercy, and find hope and comfort in His enduring love.

Lamentations 2:17

The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

Lamentations 2:18

Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

Lamentations 2:19

Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

Lamentations 2:2

The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

Lamentations 2:20

Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Lamentations 2:21

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.

Lamentations 2:22

Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

Lamentations 2:3

He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

Lamentations 2:4

He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

Lamentations 2:5

The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

Lamentations 2:6

And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

Lamentations 2:7

The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.

Lamentations 2:8

The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

Lamentations 2:9

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.