Lamentations

"How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, [and] cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger! 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. 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.

"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. 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. 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. 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.


"The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. 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. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, [and] keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. (Lamentations 2:1-11)


"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 2:18) 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 2:22) The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders. (Lamentations 4:16)

"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him." (Lamentations 3:22-25)

In this passage, Jeremiah expresses how overwhelmed he is by the destruction of Jerusalem, by the sin of the people that brought it about, and by the suffering that resulted from the destruction. He found it difficult to be diverted from his somber frame of mind. Although Jeremiah did acknowledge God's sovereignty over these events, he expressed confusion over the fact that God had allwed this suffering. This message of Jeremiah is a statement of God's mercy to His people on a daily basis despite the Israelites' constant unfaithfulness to Him. He was reminded that all the blessings in life come from God (see James 5:11), and his trust should be in God alone.

"Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old." (Lamentations 5:21) This prayer by Jeremiah reflects the hope that the people of Jerusalem would return to a proper relationship with God.


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