Lamentations 2:8
The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together. The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.
The book is a mournful lament over the ruin that was about to engulf Jeremiah's people, a ruin he had foreseen and foretold as inevitable. It commemorates the awful sufferings that came upon the apostate people of God, the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Its second chapter describes the destruction and suffering of Jerusalem under Babylonian judgment brought upon the Jews.
Joined to the next verse, it shows that the law of God and the gift of prophecy are inseparable and flourish or fail together, so that when the law is no more the prophets are left without revelation from the Lord. The tribulation it describes was severe enough to challenge the claim that the later destruction of Jerusalem was history's greatest tribulation. As further shown by chapter 4, especially verses 3-10, the suffering under the Babylonians was as great as the suffering at Jerusalem's later destruction, which means the Jews under Babylon cannot be identified as the elect who experience the greatest tribulation spoken of in Matthew 24.