Baruch 1–5

Chapter 1

And these are the words of the book, which Baruch the son of Nerias, the son of Maasias, the son of Sedecias, the son of Sedei, the son Helcias, wrote in Babylonia.

²In the fifth year, in the seventh day of the month, at the time that the Chaldeans took Jerusalem, and burnt it with fire.

³And Baruch read the words of this book in the hearing of Jechonias the son of Joakim king of Juda, and in the hearing of all the people that came to hear the book.

⁴And in the hearing of the nobles, the sons of the kings, and in the hearing of the ancients, and in the hearing of the people, from the least even to the greatest of them that dwelt in Babylonia, by the river Sedi.

⁵And when they heard it they wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord.

⁶And they made a collection of money according to every man’s power.

⁷And they sent it to Jerusalem to Joakim the priest, the son of Helcias, the son of Salom, and to the priests, and to all the people, that were found with him in Jerusalem:

⁸At the time when he received the vessels of the temple of the Lord, which had been taken away out of the temple, to return them into the land of Juda the tenth day of the month Sivan, the silver vessels, which Sedecias the son of Josias king of Juda had made,

⁹After that Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon had carried away Jechonias, and the princes, and all the powerful men, and the people of the land from Jerusalem, and brought them bound to Babylon.

¹⁰And they said: Behold we have sent you money, buy with it holocausts, and frankincense, and make meat offerings, and offerings for sin at the altar of the Lord our God:

¹¹And pray ye for the life of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and for the life of Balthasar his son, that their days may be upon earth as the days of heaven:

¹²And that the Lord may give us strength, and enlighten our eyes, that we may live under the shadow of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and under the shadow of Balthasar his son, and may serve them many days, and may find favour in their sight.

¹³And pray ye for us to the Lord our God: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, and his wrath is not turned away from us even to this day.

¹⁴And read ye this book, which we have sent to you to be read in the temple of the Lord, on feasts, and proper days.

¹⁵And you shall say: To the Lord our God belongeth justice, but to us confusion of our face: as it is come to pass at this day to all Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,

¹⁶To our kings, and to our princes, and to our priests, and to our prophets, and to our fathers.

¹⁷We have sinned before the Lord our God, and have not believed him, nor put our trust in him:

¹⁸And we were not obedient to him, and we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his commandments which he hath given us.

¹⁹From the day that he brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, we were disobedient to the Lord our God: and going astray we turned away from hearing his voice.

²⁰And many evils have cleaved to us, and the curses which the Lord foretold by Moses his servant: who brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, to give us a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day.

²¹And we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God according to all the words of the prophets whom he sent to us:

²²And we have gone away every man after the inclinations of his own wicked heart, to serve strange gods, and to do evil in the sight of the Lord our God.

Chapter 2

Wherefore the Lord our God hath made good his word, that he spoke to us, and to our judges that have judged Israel, and to our kings, and to our princes, and to all Israel and Juda:

²That the Lord would bring upon us great evils, such as never happened under heaven, as they have come to pass in Jerusalem, according to the things that are written in the law of Moses:

³That a man should eat the flesh of his own son, and the flesh of his own daughter.

⁴And he hath delivered them up to be under the hand of all the kings that are round about us, to be a reproach, and desolation among all the people, among whom the Lord hath scattered us.

⁵And we are brought under, and are not uppermost: because we have sinned against the Lord our God, by not obeying his voice.

⁶To the Lord our God belongeth justice: but to us, and to our fathers confusion of face, as at this day.

⁷For the Lord hath pronounced against us all these evils that are come upon us:

⁸And we have not entreated the face of the Lord our God, that we might return every one of us from our most wicked ways.

⁹And the Lord hath watched over us for evil, and hath brought it upon us: for the Lord is just in all his works which he hath commanded us:

¹⁰And we have not hearkened to his voice to walk in the commandments of the Lord which he hath set before us.

¹¹And now, O Lord God of Israel, who hast brought thy people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and with signs, and with wonders, and with thy great power, and with a mighty arm, and hast made thee a name as at this day,

¹²We have sinned, we have done wickedly, we have acted unjustly, O Lord our God, against all thy justices.

¹³Let thy wrath be turned away from us: for we are left a few among the nations where thou hast scattered us.

¹⁴Hear, O Lord, our prayers, and our petitions, and deliver us for thy own sake: and grant that we may find favour in the sight of them that have led us away:

¹⁵That all the earth may know that thou art the Lord our God, and that thy name is called upon Israel, and upon his posterity.

¹⁶Look down upon us, O Lord, from thy holy house, and incline thy ear, and hear us.

¹⁷Open thy eyes, and behold: for the dead that are in hell, whose spirit is taken away from their bowels, shall not give glory and justice to the Lord:

¹⁸But the soul that is sorrowful for the greatness of evil she hath done, and goeth bowed down, and feeble, and the eyes that fail, and the hungry soul giveth glory and justice to thee the Lord.

¹⁹For it is not for the justices of our fathers that we pour out our prayers, and beg mercy in thy sight, O Lord our God:

²⁰But because thou hast sent out thy wrath, and thy indignation upon us, as thou hast spoken by the hand of thy servants the prophets, saying:

²¹Thus saith the Lord: Bow down your shoulder, and your neck, and serve the king of Babylon: and you shall remain in the land which I have given to your fathers.

²²But if you will not hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, to serve the king of Babylon: I will cause you to depart out of the cities of Juda, and from without Jerusalem.

²³And I will take away from you the voice of mirth, and the voice of joy, and the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, and all the land shall be without any footstep of inhabitants.

²⁴And they hearkened not to thy voice, to serve the king of Babylon: and thou hast made good thy words, which thou spokest by the hands of thy servants the prophets, that the bones of our kings, and the bones of our fathers should be removed out of their place:

²⁵And behold they are cast out to the heat of the sun, and to the frost of the night: and they have died in grievous pains, by famine, and by the sword, and in banishment.

²⁶And thou hast made the temple, in which thy name was called upon, as it is at this day, for the iniquity of the house of Israel, and the house of Juda.

²⁷And thou hast dealt with us, O Lord our God, according to all thy goodness, and according to all that great mercy of thine:

²⁸As thou spokest by the hand of thy servant Moses, in the day when thou didst command him to write thy law before the children of Israel,

²⁹Saying: If you will not hear my voice, this great multitude shall be turned into a very small number among the nations, where I will scatter them:

³⁰For I know that the people will not hear me, for they are a people of a stiff neck: but they shall turn to their heart in the land of their captivity:

³¹And they shall know that I am the Lord their God: and I will give them a heart, and they shall understand: and ears, and they shall hear.

³²And they shall praise me in the land of their captivity, and shall be mindful of my name.

³³And they shall turn away themselves from their stiff neck, and from their wicked deeds: for they shall remember the way of their fathers, that sinned against me.

³⁴And I will bring them back again into the land which I promised with an oath to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they shall be masters thereof: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be diminished.

³⁵And I will make with them another covenant that shall be everlasting, to be their God, and they shall be my people: and I will no more remove my people, the children of Israel, out of the land that I have given them.

Chapter 3

And now, O Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, the soul in anguish, and the troubled spirit crieth to thee:

²Hear, O Lord, and have mercy, for thou art a merciful God, and have pity on us: for we have sinned before thee.

³For thou remainest for ever, and shall we perish everlastingly?

⁴O Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, hear now the prayer of the dead of Israel, and of their children, that have sinned before thee, and have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God, wherefore evils have cleaved fast to us.

⁵Remember not the iniquities of our fathers, but think upon thy hand, and upon thy name at this time:

⁶For thou art the Lord our God, and we will praise thee, O Lord:

⁷Because for this end thou hast put thy fear in our hearts, to the intent that we should call upon thy name, and praise thee in our captivity, for we are converted from the iniquity of our fathers, who sinned before thee.

⁸And behold we are at this day in our captivity, whereby thou hast scattered us to be a reproach, and a curse, and an offence, according to all the iniquities of our fathers, who departed from thee, O Lord our God.

⁹Hear, O Israel, the commandments…