Lamentations

King James (Authorized) Version

Lamentations has 5 chapters. Read Lamentations in the King James (Authorized) Version, chapter by chapter, free and without an account.

Lamentations mourns Jerusalem’s devastation through five poems. The city is portrayed as a bereaved woman, while other voices describe hunger, humiliation, violence, and the loss of communal life. Confession and appeals to God coexist with protest and questions. Words of hope in chapter 3 do not erase the suffering; the final poem ends with a plea for restoration and an unresolved question of rejection.

Read the Lamentations summary and outline →

In Christian Bibles, Lamentations is one of the Major Prophets of the Old Testament. In the Jewish Tanakh it belongs to the Ketuvim, the Writings. See it on the shelf.

A grieving woman sits beside Jerusalem's ruined gate as a distant procession of exiles leaves the empty city
Lamentations 1

Lamentations 1: lonely Jerusalem mourns exile, confesses rebellion, seeks comfort, and appeals for justice.

Elders, women, and sheltered children grieve and raise their hands in prayer among Jerusalem's ruined walls
Lamentations 2

Lamentations 2: Jerusalem mourns ruined walls and worship, while the people pour out tears and pray through the night.

An afflicted man stands at a dark stone opening and turns toward dawn light and a young olive shoot
Lamentations 3

Lamentations 3: amid deep affliction, remembered mercy brings hope, patient waiting, repentance, prayer, and trust in justice.

Humbled families gather among scattered sanctuary stones and dimmed gold vessels while watchmen scan the horizon
Lamentations 4

Lamentations 4: siege dims Jerusalem's splendor, exposes corrupt leaders and failed alliances, and points toward accountability.

Widows, children, elders, and laborers pray over desolate Zion beside a fallen crown and silent lyre
Lamentations 5

Lamentations 5: a wounded community remembers loss, confesses sin, and asks the eternal God for restoration and renewal.