The chapter can be divided into two main parts:
PART 1 (Lamentations 2:1–10)
These verses focus on the fact that God is acting against his own people in his anger.
PART 2 (Lamentations 2:11–22)
Theses verses focus on the results of God's judgment over the people, particularly the children.
The first part (Lamentations 2:1–10) is a description of Jerusalem's downfall by God. In the second part (Lamentations 2:11–22) we first find a painful complaint (Lamentations 2:11–17) and then a commentary about it (Lamentations 2:18–19), which then culminates in an admonition to the city to pray to God (Lamentations 2:20–22).1 The acknowledgement that it was the Lord who sent judgment, and that He alone can give comfort, is to be followed by Jerusalem calling on him with her complaint.2
A three-part outline can complement the two-part outline:
PART 1 (Lamentations 2:1–10)
Lamentations 2:1–3 The Lord's Unrestrained Anger
Lamentations 2:4–5 The Lord's Hostility
Lamentations 2:6–7 The Destruction of the Temple
Lamentations 2:8–10 The Destruction of Zion and Its People
PART 2 (Lamentations 2:11–17)
Lamentations 2:11–12 The Heart-Wrenching Tragedy
Lamentations 2:13–17 Probing the Extent of Zion's Calamity
PART 3 (Lamentations 2:18–22)
Lamentations 2:18–22 Zion's Plea
This outline follows the changes of speaker:
The first part (Lamentations 2:1–10) starts with a third-person description of the Lord’s punishment. The Lord has shown no restraint in the outpouring of his wrath (Lamentations 2:1–3), he has acted like an enemy (Lamentations 2:4–5), even though he had to destroy the holy institutions (Lamentations 2:6–7) and caused devastation and misery to the city (Lamentations 2:8–10).
In the second part (Lamentations 2:11–17) there is a change to the first person. The writer now describes his personal reaction to what he has witnessed (Lamentations 2:11–12), and then addresses the city itself (Lamentations 2:12–17), seeking some way in which comfort may be extended to it. The only source of comfort and compensation is the Lord himself.
In the third part there is a direct address and plea to Zion to remind God of her agony (Lamentations 2:18–19), and then follows a prayer in which he told her what to pray (Lamentations 2:20–22). As already stated, the concern for the suffering of the young in the city is evident in the last two parts of the lament (Lamentations 2:11–22).3
1 How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud! He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.