Chapter five does not keep the acrostic pattern of the rest of the book, but it does contain twenty-two verses to fit the overall structure. Lamentations closes with the people in Jerusalem crying out to God for mercy. Their situation was so desperate that they had to beg Egypt and Assyria to help provide food for them (Lamentations 5:6). Their women had been defiled, their princes humiliated, and their elders terribly mistreated (Lamentations 5:11-12). The young men had no strength even to carry wood; there was no music and no joy left in the ancient city (Lamentations 5:13-15). Yet they still believed that God had not forsaken them completely, so Lamentations ends with the hope of restoration, with God sitting on his eternal throne and his people repenting before him (Lamentations 5:19-22).
