--- title: "Lamentations: Summary & All 5 Chapters · Bless" url: https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/ description: "Lamentations, a book of funeral poetry in 5 chapters. Bp. Challoner’s summary of 1 of its 5 chapters, and the full text free." --- Old Testament # Lamentations Lamentations is the twenty-ninth of the 46 books of the Old Testament: 5 chapters and 154 verses. [Start reading: Lamentations 1](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/1/) [1](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/1/) [2](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/2/) [3](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/3/) [4](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/4/) [5](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/5/) ## About Lamentations About Lamentations · Funeral poetry Lamentations is five tightly crafted poems mourning Jerusalem after its destruction by Babylon — the burned temple, the starving children, the taunting enemies. Tradition attaches it to Jeremiah, though the poems themselves are anonymous. It was written to give a shattered people a way to grieve before God without pretending, and it faces the ruin so honestly that its one flare of hope — the mercies of the Lord new every morning — has carried sufferers ever since. The Church prays these poems in Holy Week. *Lamentations in Bless* | | | |---|---| | Testament | Old Testament — book 29 of 46, 29 of 73 in the Bible | | Canon | Protocanonical (in every Christian canon) | | Chapters | 5 | | Verses | 154, as Bless numbers them | | Latin | Clementine Vulgate, every chapter | | Bp. Challoner | Summaries of 1 of 5 chapters · 2 notes | | Catechism | 1 paragraph cite it | Chapter by chapter ## All 5 chapters, *in brief.* Bishop Richard Challoner’s summary of each chapter, from his revision of the Douay-Rheims (1749–52). Open a chapter for the full text. 1. ### [Lamentations 1](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/1/) 22 verses And it came to pass, after Israel was carried into captivity, and Jerusalem was desolate, that Jeremias the prophet sat weeping, and mourned with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and with a sorrowful mind, sighing and moaning, he said: 2. ### [Lamentations 2](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/2/) 22 verses No summary from Challoner. 3. ### [Lamentations 3](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/3/) 66 verses No summary from Challoner. 4. ### [Lamentations 4](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/4/) 22 verses No summary from Challoner. 5. ### [Lamentations 5](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/5/) 22 verses No summary from Challoner. Bp. Richard Challoner · chapter summaries In the comments ## What the saints *said.* 1 quotation from 1 saint linked to passages of Lamentations in Bless. Each names the work it comes from. [St. Thomas Aquinas](https://blessbible.app/saints/st-thomas-aquinas/) · on [Lamentations 3:41](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/3/#v41) On this theme > Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God. Summa Theologiae, II-II q.83, c. 1270 Coming up ## Read at *Mass.* From October 29, 2026 to October 28, 2027, Lamentations is read at the principal Mass on 0 days in the US calendar. The next reading: | Date | Celebration | Reading | Citation | |---|---|---|---| | [Sat, Jul 1, 2028](https://blessbible.app/calendar/2028/07/01/) computed | Saturday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time | First Reading | [Lamentations 2:2, 10-14, 18-19](https://blessbible.app/bible/lamentations/2/) | Dates after May 31, 2027 are computed by Bless from the US Lectionary cycle — confirm with your parish. [Previous book The Book of Jeremiah](https://blessbible.app/bible/jeremiah/) [Next book The Book of Baruch](https://blessbible.app/bible/baruch/)