They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. (Jeremiah 6:14) The loss of the city of Jerusalem, its temple and its king, was a loss that shattered the faith and identity of Jerusalem. The loss violated the deepest confidence and the most treasured assurances of the Jerusalem establishment. The new reality of public loss required deep and extended public grief that mourned and wept and chronicled the evaporation of viable life. The Book of Lamentations lines out the liturgical practice of grief.
