When we left Jeremiah last week he had been imprisoned and was not the most popular person in Israel.
He continues to tell the people to wait for the Lord and to stay put. He denounces them for their worship of idols and announces that God will pass judgement on the Egyptians, the Philistines, Moab, the Ammonites, Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazar. These are the nations that Israel is hoping will rescue them from the Babylonians. For good measure he also notes that God will pass judgement on Babylon as well - but that doesn't seem to appease the people very much.
That brings us to the book of Lamentations.
Laments are a type of psalm - in the books of Psalms you can find other laments - for example Psalms 3 - 7 Psalm 39 and Psalm 130. Usually laments begin with a cry for help and then move into a complaint.
It is likely that this book was not written by Jeremiah himself.
The first four chapters are an acrostic - The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters - each stanza begins with a different letter - in order.
These are laments over Jerusalem and pick up the themes in several of the psalms of lament.
Join the discussion of the major prophets on April 16 at 5 p.m.
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