Theme: The Sovereign LORD disciplines his people for their good; wait for him to make all things new

Lamentations 3 is variously divided by different commentators. It begins with a testimony of great suffering in which the believer continues to hope in God’s compassion, confident that suffering will come to an end at some point. He understands his suffering to be God’s righteous response to sin, and calls on the church community to repent of sin and pray for God’s forgiveness. He and they must continue to do so no matter what miseries they experience, they must be confident that the LORD will intervene in the future to bring salvation when he judges the wicked.

An acrostic poem
Chapters 1-4 of Lamentations follow an acrostic pattern. Each line of poetry begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Since the Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, poems that use this structure demonstrate great skill on the part of the poet since they must both say something meaningful as well as conform to the sequence of the alphabet.