Lamentations
one of the shorter books of the Old Testament. No author's name is attached to it in the Hebrew Bible, where it is simply designated from its first two words, ekhah="O how." The Septuagint translators called it Threnoi Ieremiou = "Dirges or Lamentations of Jeremiah." Universal tradition attributes it to him, and the style is that of his acknowledged prophecies. The theme is the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem, and the slaughter of many of its inhabitants, with the misery of the survivors. It is chanted in part of the Jewish ritual on the 9th of Ab, in our month of July.