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Baruch 3
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Chapter 3
III.
WISDOM, THE PREROGATIVE OF ISRAEL
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 in your sight.
3
You sit enthroned for ever, while we perish continually.
4
Almighty Lord, God of Israel, hear the prayer of the dead of Israel,[*a] of the sons of those who have sinned against you and have not listened to the voice of the Lord their God, hence the disasters that have seized on us.
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Do not call to mind the misdeeds of our ancestors, but remember instead your power and your name.
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You are indeed the Lord our God and we long to praise you, Lord,
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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 emptied our hearts of the evil inclinations of our ancestors who sinned against you.
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Look on us today, still in exile where you have dispersed us as something execrable, accursed, condemned, in punishment 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
sharing defilement with the dead, reckoned with those who go to Sheol?
12
Because you have forsaken the fountain of wisdom.
13
Had you walked in the way of God, you would have lived in peace for ever.
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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.
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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,
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who had the birds of heaven at their beck and call, who accumulated silver and gold on which mankind relies, and whose possessions had no limits,
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those who displayed such artistry in silver that their masterpieces beggar imagination?
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They have vanished, gone down to Sheol. Others have risen to their places,
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more recent generations have seen the day and peopled the earth in their turn: but the way of knowledge is something they have not known,
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they have not recognised the paths she treads. Nor have their sons 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;
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the sons of Hagar in search of worldly wisdom, the merchants of Midian and Tema, the tale-spinners and the philosophers have none of them found the way to wisdom, or discovered the paths she treads.
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How great, Israel, is the house of God, how wide his domain,
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immeasurably wide, infinitely lofty!
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In it were born the giants, famous to us from antiquity, immensely tall, expert in war;
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God’s choice did not fall on these, he did not reveal the way to knowledge to them;
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they perished for lack of wisdom, perished in their own folly.
29
Who has ever climbed the sky and caught 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 knows the way to her, no one can discover the path she treads.
32
But the One who knows all knows her, he has grasped her with his own intellect, he has set the earth firm for ever and filled it with four-footed beasts,
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he sends the light – and it goes, he recalls it – and trembling it obeys;
34
the stars shine joyfully at their set times:
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when he calls them, they answer, ‘Here we are’; they gladly shine for their creator.
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It is he who is our God, no other can compare with him.
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He has grasped the whole way of knowledge, and confided it to his servant Jacob, to Israel his well-beloved;
38
so causing her to appear on earth and move among men.
Chapters of Baruch
1
2
3
4
5
6
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