Day 239 | Thursday after 13th Sunday after Pentecost

Read | Day 239 | Thursday | August 27 |

Lamentations 2: 1-22
Lamentations 3: 1-66
Lamentations 4: 1-22

Background| Center for Biblical Studies | Lamentations | More - Click here

Lamentations is a short, anonymous book that is typically associated with the prophet Jeremiah because of its gloomy tone and subject matter: the fall of Jerusalem. This is why the book is found after the book of Jeremiah in the Christian canon. (It is grouped with other books in the Jewish canon.) The fact that 1 Chronicles 35:25 speaks of laments written by Jeremiah “lamenting” for King Josiah further suggests the link between Jeremiah and this book, though not all are convinced.

Lamentations is a collection of reactions to the fall of Jerusalem, written in poetic style. Each of the five chapters contains twenty-two verses. This is no accident, for the Hebrew alphabet has twenty-two letters. The first four chapters are written in a style known as acrostic: each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. That style is completely lost in English translations, obviously. In contrast to these first four chapters, chapter 5 is not an acrostic.

The tone of the book is like a funeral dirge and its main message is that Jerusalem’s fall was well-deserved punishment ...

Date | 586 BC

Reading | God's anger at sin and broken relationship; arise - cry out in the night - pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord; I have been punished but God love will save me; God's anger in broken relationship.

Source | Tyndale | The One Year Chronological Bible NIV | ISBN 978-1-4143-5993-9 | kindle edition

Next | Day 240 | Friday | August 28 |

Lamentations 5: 1-22
Obadiah 1: 1a, 1b-9, 10-14, 15-21
2   Kings 25: 22-26
Jeremiah 40: 7-12, 13-16
Jeremiah 41: 1-18 

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Listen and pray the morning office provided by the good people of the Episcopal Parish of Garrett County, Maryland, USA via Mission St Clare – Click here