AncientWord

1 These are the words of the book that Baruch son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, son of Zedekiah, son of Hasadiah, son of Hilkiah, wrote in Babylon.

2 In the fifth year, on the seventh day of the month, at the time when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem and burned it with fire.

3 Baruch read the words of this book in the hearing of Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and in the ears of all the people who had come to hear the reading—

4 including the nobles, the king’s sons, the elders, and all the people, from the smallest to the greatest—all those who lived in Babylon by the river Sud.

5 They wept, fasted, and prayed before the Lord.

6 They collected silver, as much as each could give, and sent it to Jerusalem, to the priest Jehoiakim son of Hilkiah, son of Shallum, and to the other priests and to all the people who were with him in Jerusalem.

7 They sent it along with vessels from the house of the Lord that had been taken away from the temple. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried them away from Jerusalem and put them in the temple of his gods. The people of Judah now brought them back with the silver.

8 On the tenth day of the month Sivan, Baruch took the vessels of the house of the Lord which had been taken from the temple, so as to bring them back to the land of Judah, along with the silver meant for burnt offerings to be offered on the altar of the Lord our God.

9 They sent this message with the silver: “We send you this money to buy burnt offerings and sin offerings, and incense, and to prepare grain offerings. Offer them on the altar of the Lord our God, and pray for the life of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and for the life of Belshazzar his son, so that their days may be like the days of heaven upon earth.

10 And may the Lord give us strength and enlighten our eyes. May we live under the protection of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and of Belshazzar his son. May we serve them many days and find favor in their sight.

11 Pray also for us to the Lord our God, for we have sinned against the Lord our God, and to this day the anger and wrath of the Lord has not turned away from us.

12 Read this book, which we are sending to you, publicly in the house of the Lord on feast days and at appropriate times.

13 And say: ‘To the Lord our God belongs righteousness, but to us belongs shame of face, as it is this day—to the people of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,

14 to our kings, our rulers, our priests, our prophets, and our ancestors—

15 because we have sinned before the Lord.

16 We have disobeyed Him and have not listened to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in the commandments that He gave us openly.

17 From the day the Lord brought our ancestors out of the land of Egypt until today, we have been disobedient to the Lord our God, and we have been careless in not listening to His voice.

18 Because of this, the calamities and the curse that the Lord declared through Moses His servant, on the day He brought our ancestors out of Egypt to give us a land flowing with milk and honey, have clung to us to this day.

19 We did not listen to the voice of the Lord our God in all the words of the prophets whom He sent to us,

20 but each of us followed the stubbornness of his own evil heart, serving other gods and doing evil in the sight of the Lord our God.