Day 234: Baruch 1 - 3

Chapter 1

1: This is the text of the book written in Babylon by Baruch son of Neraiah, son of Mahseiah, son of Zedekiah, son of Hasadiah, son of Hilkiah,
2: in the fifth year, on the seventh day of the month, at the time when the Chaldaeans had captured Jerusalem and burned it down.
3: Baruch read the text of this book aloud to Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and to all the people who had come to hear the reading,
4: to the nobles and the sons of the king, and to the elders; to the whole people, that is, to the least no less than to the greatest, to all who lived in Babylon beside the river Sud.
5: On hearing it they wept, fasted and prayed before the Lord;
6: and they collected as much money as each could afford
7: and sent it to Jerusalem to the priest Jehoiakim son of Hilkiah, son of Shallum, and the other priests, and all the people who were with him in Jerusalem.
8: Also on the tenth day of Sivan he was given the utensils of the house of the Lord, which had been removed from the Temple, to take them back to the land of Judah; these were silver utensils which Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, had had made
9: after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had deported Jeconiah from Jerusalem to Babylon, together with the princes, the metalworkers, the nobles and the common people.
10: Now, they wrote, we are sending you money to pay for burnt offerings, offerings for sin, and incense. Prepare oblations and offer them on the altar of the Lord our God;
11: and pray for the long life of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and of his son Belshazzar, that they may endure on earth as long as the heavens endure;
12: and that the Lord may give us strength and enlighten our eyes, so that we may lead our lives under the protection of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and of his son Belshazzar, and that we may serve them for a long time and win their favour.
13: Also pray to the Lord our God for us, because we have sinned against him, and the anger, the fury of the Lord, has still not turned away from us.
14: Lastly, you must read the booklet which we are sending you, publicly in the house of the Lord on the feast day and appropriate days.
15: You must say: Saving justice is the Lord's, we have only the look of shame we bear, as is the case today for the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
16: for our kings and princes, our priests, our prophets, and for our ancestors,
17: because we have sinned before the Lord,
18: have disobeyed him, and have not listened to the voice of the Lord our God telling us to follow the commandments which the Lord had ordained for us.
19: From the day when the Lord brought our ancestors out of Egypt until today we have been disobedient to the Lord our God, we have been disloyal, refusing to listen to his voice.
20: And we are not free even today of the disasters and the curse which the Lord pronounced through his servant Moses the day he brought our ancestors out of Egypt to give us a land flowing with milk and honey.
21: We have not listened to the voice of the Lord our God in all the words of those prophets he sent us;
22: but, each following the dictates of our evil heart, we have taken to serving alien gods, and doing what is displeasing to the Lord our God.

Chapter 2

1: And so the Lord has carried out the sentence which he passed on us, on our judges who governed Israel, on our kings and leaders and on the people of Israel and of Judah;
2: what he did to Jerusalem has never been paralleled under the wide heavens -- in conformity with what was written in the Law of Moses;
3: we were each reduced to eating the flesh of our own sons and daughters.
4: Furthermore, he has handed them over into the power of all the kingdoms that surround us, to be the contempt and execration of all the neighbouring peoples among whom the Lord scattered them.
5: Instead of being masters, they found themselves enslaved, because we had sinned against the Lord our God by not listening to his voice.
6: Saving justice is the Lord's; we and our ancestors have only the look of shame we bear today.
7: All those disasters which the Lord pronounced against us have now befallen us.
8: And yet we have not tried to win the favour of the Lord by each of us renouncing the dictates of our own wicked heart;
9: so the Lord has been alert to our misdeeds and has brought disaster down on us, since the Lord is upright in everything he had commanded us to do,
10: and we have not listened to his voice so as to follow the commandments which the Lord had ordained for us.
11: And now, Lord, God of Israel, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand, with signs and wonders, with great power and with outstretched arm, to win yourself a name such as you have today,
12: we have sinned, we have committed sacrilege; Lord our God, we have broken all your precepts.
13: Let your anger turn from us since we are no more than a little remnant among the nations where you have dispersed us.
14: Listen, Lord, to our prayers and our entreaties; deliver us for your own sake and let us win the favour of the people who have deported us,
15: so that the whole world may know that you are the Lord our God, since Israel and his descendants bear your name.
16: Look down, Lord, from your holy dwelling-place and think of us, bow your ear and listen,
17: open your eyes, Lord, and look; the dead down in Sheol, whose breath has been taken from their bodies, are not the ones to give glory and due recognition to the Lord;
18: whoever is overcome with affliction, who goes along bowed down and frail, with failing eyes and hungering soul, that is the one to give you glory and due recognition, Lord.
19: We do not rely on the merits of our ancestors and of our kings to offer you our humble plea, Lord our God.
20: No, you have sent down your anger and your fury on us, as you threatened through your servants the prophets when they said,
21: 'The Lord says this: Bend your necks and serve the king of Babylon, and you will remain in the country which I gave to your ancestors.
22: But if you do not listen to the voice of the Lord and serve the king of Babylon
23: then I shall silence the shouts of rejoicing and mirth and the voices of bridegroom and bride in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, and the whole country will be reduced to desert, with no inhabitants.'
24: But we would not listen to your voice and serve the king of Babylon, and so you carried out what you had threatened through your servants the prophets: that the bones of our kings and of our ancestors would be dragged from their resting places.
25: They were indeed tossed out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night. And people died in dreadful agony, from famine, sword and plague.
26: And so, because of the wickedness of the House of Israel and the House of Judah, you have made this House, that bears your name, what it is today.
27: And yet, Lord our God, you have treated us in a way worthy of all your goodness and boundless tenderness,
28: just as you had promised through your servant Moses, the day you told him to write your Law in the presence of the Israelites, and said,
29: 'If you do not listen to my voice, this great and innumerable multitude will certainly be reduced to a tiny few among the nations where I shall scatter them-
30: for I knew that, being an obstinate people, they would not listen to me. But in the country of their exile, they will come to themselves
31: and acknowledge that I am the Lord their God. I shall give them a heart and an attentive ear,
32: and they will sing my praises in the country of their exile, they will remember my name;
33: they will stop being obstinate and, remembering what became of their ancestors who sinned before the Lord, will turn from their evil deeds.
34: Then I shall bring them back to the country which I promised on oath to their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and make them masters in it. I shall make their numbers grow; they will not dwindle again.
35: And I shall make an everlasting covenant with them; so that I am their God and they are my people. And never again shall I drive my people Israel out of the country which I have given them.'

Chapter 3

1: Almighty Lord, God of Israel, a soul in anguish, a troubled heart now cries to you:
2: Listen and have pity, Lord, for we have sinned before you.
3: You sit enthroned for ever, while we are perishing for ever.
4: Almighty Lord, God of Israel, hear the prayer of the dead of Israel, of the children of those who have sinned against you and have not listened to the voice of the Lord their God; hence the disasters which dog us.
5: Do not call to mind the misdeeds of our ancestors, but remember instead your power and your name.
6: You are indeed the Lord our God and we will praise you, Lord,
7: since you have put respect for you in our hearts to encourage us to call on your name. We long to praise you in our exile, for we have rid our hearts of the wickedness of our ancestors who sinned against you.
8: Look, today we are still in exile where you have scattered us as something contemptible, accursed, condemned, for all the misdeeds of our ancestors who had abandoned the Lord our God.
9: Listen, Israel, to commands that bring life; hear, and learn what knowledge means.
10: Why, Israel, why are you in the country of your enemies, growing older and older in an alien land,
11: defiling yourselves with the dead, reckoned with those who go to Sheol?
12: It is because you have forsaken the fountain of wisdom!
13: Had you walked in the way of God, you would be living in peace for ever.
14: Learn where knowledge is, where strength, where understanding, and so learn where length of days is, where life, where the light of the eyes and where peace.
15: But who has found out where she lives, who has entered her treasure house?
16: Where now are the leaders of the nations and those who ruled even the beasts of earth,
17: those who sported with the birds of heaven, those who accumulated silver and gold on which all people rely, and whose possessions had no end,
18: those who worked so carefully in silver -but of whose works no trace is to be found?
19: They have vanished, gone down to Sheol. Others have risen to their places,
20: more recent generations have seen the day and peopled the earth in their turn, but the way of knowledge they have not found;
21: they have not recognised the paths she treads. Nor have their children had any grasp of her, remaining far from her way.
22: Nothing has been heard of her in Canaan, nothing has been seen of her in Teman;
23: the children of Hagar in search of worldly wisdom, the merchants of Midian and Teman, the tale-spinners and the philosophers have none of them found the way to wisdom or remembered the paths she treads.
24: How great, Israel, is the house of God, how wide his domain,
25: immeasurably wide, infinitely lofty!
26: In it were born the giants, famous from the beginning, immensely tall, expert in war;
27: God's choice did not fall on these, he did not show them the way of knowledge;
28: they perished for lack of wisdom, perished by their own folly.
29: Who has ever climbed the sky and seized her to bring her down from the clouds?
30: Who has ever crossed the ocean and found her to bring her back in exchange for the finest gold?
31: No one can learn the way to her, no one can understand the path she treads.
32: But the One who knows all discovers her, he has grasped her with his own intellect, he has set the earth firm for evermore and filled it with four-footed beasts,
33: he sends the light -- and it goes, he recalls it -- and trembling it obeys;
34: the stars shine joyfully at their posts;
35: when he calls them, they answer, 'Here we are'; they shine to delight their Creator.
36: It is he who is our God, no other can compare with him.
37: He has uncovered the whole way of knowledge and shown it to his servant Jacob, to Israel his well-beloved;
38: only then did she appear on earth and live among human beings.