The book of Lamentations commemorates the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. The book\ is a collection of five laments, jn moving poetry, reflecting on the suffering and dislocation that resulted from the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the exile that followed. It is the Bible's primary literature of destruc­tion and became the paradigm for later Jewish literature of destruction. Lamentations is a form of mourning for a destruction that was to become a linchpin in Jewish history and Jewish religious thought.