Baruch 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, on the men of Israel and of Judah;

² what he did to Jerusalem has never been paralleled under the wide heavens – all this in conformity with what was written in the Law of Moses;

³ we were all 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 loathed and avoided by all the neighbouring nations among whom he 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 Integrity belongs to the Lord our God; to us the look of shame we wear today, to us, as to our ancestors.

⁷ All those disasters which the Lord pronounced against us have now happened to us.

⁸ And yet we have not tried to win the favour of the Lord by each one of us renouncing the dictates of his own wicked heart;

⁹ and so the Lord has watched for the right moment to bring disaster on us, since the Lord gives a just return for what we do of all that he has ordered us to do,

¹⁰ and we have not listened to his voice telling us to follow the commandments which the Lord had ordained for us.

¹¹ And now, Lord, God of Israel, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, with signs and wonders, with great power and with outstretched arm, to win yourself a name renowned today,

¹² we have sinned, we have been irreligious; Lord our God, we have broken all your commandments.

¹³ Let your anger turn from us since we are no more than a poor remnant among the nations where you have dispersed us.

¹⁴ Listen, Lord, to our prayer, to our entreaty; deliver us for the sake of your honour and grant us your favour for all our captors to see it,

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 give a thought to us, take heed of us and listen,

¹⁷ look at us, Lord, and consider; the dead down in Sheol, whose breath has been taken from their bodies, are not the ones to give glory and due observance to the Lord;

¹⁸ the person overcome with affliction, who goes his way bowed down and frail, with failing eyes and hungering soul, he is the one to give you glory, Lord, and due observance.

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 promised through your servants the prophets when they said,

²¹ ‘The Lord says this: Bend your necks and submit to the king of Babylon, and you will remain in the land which I gave your ancestors.

²² But if you do not listen to the voice of the Lord and submit to the king of Babylon,

²³ then I will silence the shouts of rejoicing and mirth and the voices of bridegroom and bride in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and the whole land will be reduced to desert, without inhabitants.’

²⁴ But we did not listen to your voice and submit to the king of Babylon, and so you carried out what you had promised 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 sons of Israel, and said this,

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 among which I shall disperse them,

³⁰ and I know very well that this people will not listen, it is so stubborn. But in the country of their exile they will take all this to heart

³¹ and acknowledge that I am the Lord their God. I will give them a heart and an attentive ear.

³² They will sing my praises in the country of their exile, they will remember my name;

³³ they will not be stubborn any more, but, remembering what became of their ancestors who sinned in the sight of the Lord, will turn from their evil deeds.

³⁴ Then I will bring them back to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and make them masters in it. I will increase their number: they shall not dwindle.

³⁵ And I will make an everlasting covenant with them; I will be their God and they shall be my people. And I will never again drive my people Israel out of the land that I have given them.’