Third of the five scrolls in the Writings section of the Bible. According to tradition, its author is the prophet Jeremiah. Lamentations consists of five beautiful elegies or poems of mourning lamenting the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the first Temple. The first four elegies are written in alphabetic acrostics, that is, each verse opens with a letter of the alphabet in consecutive order. Lamentations is chanted in the synagogue on the ninth day of the month of Ab, the day in 586 B.C.E. of the destruction of the Temple.