Baruch 1

^aAnd these are the words of the book, which ^bBaruch the son of ^cNerias, the son of Maasias, the son of Sedecias, the son of Asadias, the son of Chelcias, wrote in Babylon, ²in ^dthe fifth year, and ^din the seventh day of the month, what time as the Chaldeans took Jerusalem, and burnt it with fire. ³And ^bBaruch did read the words of this book in the hearing of ^eJechonias the son of Joachim king of Juda, and in the ears of all the people that came to hear the book, ⁴and in the hearing of the nobles, and of the kings’ sons, and in the hearing of the elders, and of all the people, ^ffrom the lowest unto the highest, even of all them that dwelt at Babylon, by the river Sud. ⁵Whereupon they wept, fasted, and prayed before the Lord. ⁶They made also a collection of money ^gaccording to every man’s power: ⁷and they sent it to Jerusalem unto Joachim the high priest, the son of ^hChelcias, son of ⁱSalom, and to the priests, and to all the people which were found with him at Jerusalem, ⁸at the same time when he received ^kthe vessels of the house of the Lord, that were carried out of the temple, to return them into the land of Juda, the tenth day of the month ^lSivan, namely, ^msilver vessels, which ⁿSedecias the son of Josias king of Juda had made, ⁹after that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon ^dhad carried away ^eJechonias, and the princes, and the captives, and the mighty men, and the people of the land, from Jerusalem, and brought them unto Babylon.

¹⁰And they said, Behold, we have sent you ^omoney to buy you ^pburnt offerings, and ^qsin offerings, and ^rincense, and prepare ye manna, and offer upon the altar of the Lord our God; ¹¹and ^spray for the life of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and for the life of ^tBalthasar his son, that their days may be upon earth as ^uthe days of heaven: ¹²and the Lord will give us strength, and lighten our eyes, and we shall live ^xunder the shadow of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and under the shadow of ^tBalthasar his son, and we shall serve them many days, and ^yfind favour in their sight. ¹³Pray for us also unto the Lord our God, for we have sinned against the Lord our God; and unto this day the fury of the Lord and his wrath is not turned from us. ¹⁴And ye shall read ^zthis book which we have sent unto you, to make confession in the house of the Lord, upon the feasts and solemn days. ¹⁵And ye shall say,

^aTo the Lord our God belongeth righteousness, but unto us ^bthe confusion of faces, ⁱas it is come to pass this day, unto them of Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, ¹⁶and to our ^ckings, and to our princes, and to our priests, and to our prophets, and to our fathers: ¹⁷for ^dwe have sinned before the Lord, ^18dand disobeyed him, and ^ehave not hearkened unto the voice of the Lord our God, ^eto walk in the commandments that he gave us openly: ¹⁹since the day that the Lord brought our forefathers out of the land of Egypt, unto this present day, we have been disobedient unto the Lord our God, and we have been negligent in not hearing his voice. ²⁰Wherefore ^fthe evils cleaved unto us, and ^gthe curse, which the Lord appointed by Moses his servant at the time that he brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, to give us ^ha land that floweth with milk and honey, like ⁱas it is to see this day. ^21eNevertheless we have not hearkened unto the voice of the Lord our God, ^kaccording unto all the words of the prophets, whom he sent unto us: ²²but every man followed the imagination of his own wicked heart, to serve ^lstrange gods, and to do evil in the sight of the Lord our God.

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