Lamentations 1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude. She dwells among the heathen, she finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her between the straits.

Lamentations 1:16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed.

Lamentations 2:19 Arise, cry out in the night. In the beginning of the watches pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

Lamentations 3:1-5 I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned. He turns his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my skin has he made old. He hath broken my bones. He has built against me and compassed me with gall and travail.

Lamentations 3:6 He has set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. 

Lamentations 3:7 He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out. He has made my chain heavy.

Lamentations 3:8 Also when I cry and shout, he shuts out my prayer.

Lamentations 3:9-16 He has inclosed my ways with hewn stone. He has made my paths crooked. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait and as a lion in secret places. He has turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate. He has bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people and their song all the day. He has filled me with bitterness and made me drunken with wormwood. He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones and covered me with ashes.

Lamentations 3:17 And you have removed my soul far off from peace. I forgat prosperity. 

Lamentations 3:18,19 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD in remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

Lamentations 3:21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope..(*)

Lamentations 3:22 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

God sustains us:.Nehemiah 9:19-21.

Lamentations 3:23 They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:24 The LORD is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in him.

Lamentations 3:25 The LORD is good unto them that wait.(original means to look forward to something, to wait in anticipation of something, such as, do good and good comes; one way to wait is to take 10 minutes, for what?).for him, to the soul that seeks him.

A reason why it may be necessary to wait.

Lamentations 3:26 It is good that a man hopes and quietly waits of the LORD.

Lamentations 3:26 It is good that a man hopes and quietly waits.(original for 'quietly waits' is 'and be in silence').for the salvation.(or 'deliverance'; we need saving from what may be bothering us and that comes from being in the silence of meditation where the answer comes in and through you).of the LORD..(*)

Lamentations 3:27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

Bear the yoke of inculcating good habits.

Lamentations 3:28 He sits alone and keeps silence because he has borne it upon him.(taken responsibility).

Lamentations 3:29 He puts his mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope.

Feeling pretty down in the mouth.

Lamentations 3:30 He gives his cheek to him that smites him. He is filled full with reproach. .(Matthew 5:39)

Lamentations 3:31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever.

Lamentations 3:32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

Closer to the original.'Affliction, grief and sufferings in one's life abundantly bring the deep love and compassion and kindness of God'; to balance the sufferings..(example)

Lamentations 3:33 For he does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.

Lamentations 3:34-36 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High, To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approves not.

Lamentations 3:37 Who is he that says and it comes to pass, when the Lord commanded it not?

Nothing, absolutely nothing, occurs in our world and the entire universe that God is not aware of and behind (*), even the evil:.Isaiah 45:7,21,22.

Lamentations 3:38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceeds not evil and good?.(the Creator is responsible for both)

Lamentations 3:39-41 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

Lamentations 4:2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

Lamentations 5:1-3 Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us. Consider and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are orphans.(original 'fatherless').and fatherless.(original 'have nothing'). Our mothers are as widows.(no help; no dad, no one else to help care for the family). 

Lamentations 5:4 We have drunken our water for money.(Barnes Notes:.'comes to us for price'; the rendering of the King James Version spoils the carefully studied rhythm of the original; the bitterness of the complaint lies in this, that it was their own property which they had to buy.{like today, where the land stolen by those in control, is then sold back to you when you need it for a house for your family}; Clarke's Commentary: "They were now so lowly reduced by servitude, that they were obliged to pay dearly for those things which formerly were common and of no price".{crown land, government land, taken from men and women of the nation}). Our wood is sold unto us.(our fuel, our gas, our hydro, etc., all natural resources God gave to all, now merchandised for the profit of a few at the expense of the rest of us; a crime against humanity).

Lamentations 5:5-9 Our necks are under persecution. We labour and have no rest.(Haggai 1:6). We have given the hand to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians.(or whomever may be like that today and as those of old, those in control viewed others as a threat, so they must be managed according to rules {policies enforced by police, the policy enforcers} set down by the controlling cabal), to be satisfied with bread.(we work hard just to have some sustenance). Our fathers have sinned.(those who set up ruinous practices of greed).and are not.(not around anymore).and we have borne their iniquities.(we continue to suffer with their legacy). Servants have ruled over us.(as today, those elected to serve mankind are often, but not always, self-serving once elected). There is none that does deliver us out of their hand.(everyone just goes along with it all because no one cares for tomorrow; look at the legacy of debt being left to our grandchildren). We get our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.

Today, it's at risk to acquire the necessities of living for many having to get to work with a vehicle needing fixing that they can't all the time afford to repair and pay fees on so it can be driven on roads; firemen, police and the like, miners, pilots, truck drivers, welders, steel riggers, window washers, etc., are at risk in their jobs trying to maintain a sane society in an unsane world.

Lamentations 5:10-13 Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine. They ravished the women in Zion and the maids in the cities of Judah. Princes are hanged up by their hand. The faces of elders were not honoured. They took the young men to grind.(to work hard).and the children fell under the wood.(they couldn't keep up with hard work).

Lamentations 5:14,15 The elders have ceased from the gate.(they had no joy in sharing their wisdom), the young men from their musick.(no heart to be joyful). The joy of our heart is ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning.

Lamentations 5:19 You, O LORD, remain for ever. Your throne from generation to generation.

Lamentations 5:21 Turn you us.(consider us, turn your attention toward us).unto you O LORD and we shall be turned.(we shall be changed). Renew our days as of old.

Original for 'old' is 'as of the East'; perhaps referring to the renewing of the Sun on Earth each day..Psalms 80:3; Jeremiah 31:18.

....next Old Testament book is Ezekiel