Baruch 1

NEW JERUSALEM	SAGRADA BIBLIA
1 This is the text of the book written in Babylon by Baruch son of Neraiah, son of Mahseiah, son ofZedekiah, 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 capturedJerusalem and burned it down.
3 Baruch read the text of this book aloud to Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and to al thepeople 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 lessthan to the greatest, to al who lived in Babylon beside the river Sud.
5 On hearing it they wept, fasted and prayed before the Lord;
6 and they col ected 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 beenremoved from the Temple, to take them back to the land of Judah; these were silver utensils which Zedekiah sonof Josiah, king of Judah, had had made
9 after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had deported Jeconiah from Jerusalem to Babylon, together withthe 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 mayendure 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 theprotection of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and of his son Belshazzar, and that we may serve them for a longtime 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 ofthe 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 thefeastday 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 casetoday 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 tel ing us to follow thecommandments 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 disobedientto 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 hisservant 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 fol owing the dictates of our evil heart, we have taken to serving alien gods, and doing whatis displeasing to the Lord our God.