The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. In the opening of the book, we are told Jeremiah is the son of a man named Hilkiah.

The tone of the book is set by a man deeply troubled about the state of his fellow Jews and the world in general. He is reaching out to the Jews in exile in Babylon attempting to explain to them that their captivity and exile is God's response to Israel's pagan worship. Jeremiah frames his metaphors in several ways, hoping the Jews will understand the weight of their sins. He tells them they are like an unfaithful wife, rebellious children, and their infidelity and rebelliousness made God’s judgment inevitable.

Through the prophet’s tears, he does offer hope of restoration and a new covenant with GodLamentations has traditionally been attributed to the hand of the prophet Jeremiah. In 2 Chronicles 35:25, there is a reference to the prophet composing a lament on the death of King Josiah, but there is no reference to Josiah in the book and no reason to connect it to Jeremiah to it aside from a long tradition of doing so.

The language conforms to the period of the Exile (586-520 BCE). The poems originated from Judeans who remained in the land around that time.