Day 237—We are in the eighth month of Bible reading: Israel’s history and Jeremiah’s prophecy/Lamentations.

    Day 237 – Lamentations 1 – 2 (loud cries, mourning the destruction of Jerusalem for unrepentant sins, probably written by Jeremiah. Lamentations 1 & 2 are acrostic poems; each verse begins with a letter of the 22-character Hebrew alphabet)

Lamentations 1. Speaking of the now destroyed and deserted Jerusalem, the City of God. 

“How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she, who was great among the nations! She, who was a princess among the provinces, has become a slave.”     “….because the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions…”

The vanquished people remember their beloved city for “all the precious things that were hers from days of old.”

The author confesses, “Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore, she became filthy…”     “Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future.”

“…the LORD has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.”

“The LORD is in the right, for I have rebelled against His word;”

“…I have been very rebellious.”

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Lamentations 2. More of the LORD’s judgments on Judah.

“He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel (the temple). He has not remembered His footstool (Ark of the Covenant) in the day of his anger.”

“In His wrath, he has broken down the strongholds (walls) of the daughter of Judah; He has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers (kings and princes). He has cut down in fierce anger all the might (armies) of Israel; He has withdrawn from them His right hand in the face of the enemy.”

“All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem; ‘Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”

And did not the people remember the years that God called to them and warned them by His prophets? Did they not see the early and later warnings? Did they not remember his calling them away from idolatry and filthiness to worship Him, the one true and living God? Did they not remember even Jeremiah’s warnings about death, famine, and destruction?

“The LORD has done what he purposed; He has carried out His word, which He commanded long ago; He has thrown down without pity; He has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes.”

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(And may this be a warning to us today as well.)