Lamentations 4: How The Tables Have Turned

Lamentations 4 bemoans the reversal of fortune that has occurred throughout Judah: "How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed!  The sacred stones lie scattered at the head of every street" (vs. 1).

Lamentations 3: A Rose Among Thorns

In the middle of an otherwise bleak message, a few powerful notes of grace and hope manage to shine forth from the darkness of Lamentations 3.

Lamentations 2: Active God

When Christians attempt to explain the problem of evil and suffering in the world, we often paint God as passive, merely permitting or allowing bad things to take place.  Jeremiah describes God in starkly different terms: as the primary actor who Himself purposes and directs the tragedy that befalls Judah.

Lamentations 1: Hitting Bottom

As joyful as the Exodus and the Conquest were in representing the birth of the nation and its inheritance of the Promised Land, the Exile and Captivity mark the opposite end of the emotional spectrum.

Psalm 135: Omnipotence And Impotence

In Psalm 135, the Psalmist draws a stark contrast between the omnipotent God of Israel and the impotent idols of the Gentiles.

II Chronicles 36: Disappearing Kings

The decline of Judah leading up to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. was marked with increasing stress and turmoil as well as the forced removal of several kings.

II Chronicles 35: Laments For A Good King

When King Josiah died, the nation mourned and lamented for him.  "All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.  Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made these a custom in Israel; they are recorded in the Laments" (vs. 24 and 25).