Week 837 · about 45 minutes
Lamentations 4
Lamentations 4 · Memory verse Lamentations 4:4
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Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Lamentations 4), the matching word search and answer key (Lamentations 4 word search), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a folded cloth
Hold a folded cloth. Read Lamentations 4 in about four minutes, stopping at Lamentations 4:4: “The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread, and no one breaks it for them.” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with Lamentations 4?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
Lamentations 4 is a real chapter from the Old Testament. It starts, “How the gold has become dim! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.” That is not a motto invented for a poster. It is the first sentence a family hears when this page is opened at night.
Keep going a little further. The chapter also says, “The kings of the earth didn’t believe, neither did all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.” Lamentations 4 opens with these words: “How the gold has become dim! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.” The line to keep is Lamentations 4:4: “The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread, and no one breaks it for them.” Carry the word “tongue” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is Lamentations 4:4: “The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread, and no one breaks it for them.” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in Lamentations 4? Then try this: Read “The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread,…” once more. What does it show you about God? You do not have to finish every verse. You can close the book after the memory verse and still have read the Bible together.
Group game
Walk the room as if you are moving through Lamentations 4. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from Lamentations 4:4. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from Lamentations 4 and write Lamentations 4:4 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
Lamentations 4:4
“The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread, and no one breaks it for them.”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for Lamentations 4. Help us remember Lamentations 4:4 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.