Baruch 1

¹And these be the words of the book, that Baruch the son of Nerias, the son of Maasias, the son of Sedecias, the son of Sedei, the son of Helcias wrote in Babylon,

²in the fifth year, in the seventh day of the month, at the time that the Chaldees took Jerusalem, and burnt it with fire.

³And Baruch read the words of this book unto the ears of Jechonias the son of Joakim king of Juda, and to the ears of all the people coming to the book,

⁴and to the ears of the mighty, the sons of the kings, and to the ears of the ancients, and to the ears of the people, from the least even to the greatest of them, that dwelt in Babylon, by the river Sodi.

⁵Who hearing it wept, and fasted, and prayed in the sight of our Lord.

⁶And they gathered money, according as every man's hand was able,

⁷and they sent into Jerusalem to Joakim the son of Helcias, the son of Salom, priest, and to the priests, and to all the people, that were found with him in Jerusalem.

⁸When he took the vessels of the temple of our Lord, which had been taken away out of the temple, to return them into the Land of Juda the tenth day of the month Sivan, the silver vessels, which Sedecias the son of Josias the king of Juda made,

⁹after that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had taken Jechonias, and the princes, and all the mighty, and the people of the land from Jerusalem, and brought them bound into Babylon.

¹⁰And they said: Behold we have sent you money, with the which buy ye holocausts, and frankincense, and make manna, and offer for sin at the altar of the Lord our God:

¹¹and pray ye for the life of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and for the life of Balthasar his son, that their days may be as the days of heaven upon the earth:

¹²and that our Lord give us strength, and illuminate our eyes, that we may live under the shadow of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and under the shadow of Balthasar his son, and may serve them many days, and may find grace in their sight.

¹³And for ourselves pray ye to the Lord our God: because we have sinned to the Lord our God, and his fury is not turned away from us even to this day.

¹⁴And read ye this book, which we have sent to you to be recited in the temple of our Lord, in a solemn day, and in a day convenient.

¹⁵And you shall say: To the Lord our God justice: but to us confusion of our face: as is this day to all Juda, and them that dwell in Jerusalem,

¹⁶to our kings, and to our princes, and to our priests, and to our prophets, and to our fathers.

¹⁷We have sinned before the Lord our God, and believed him not, having diffidence in him:

¹⁸and we would not be made subject to him, and we have not heard the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his commandments, which he hath given us.

¹⁹From the day, that he brought our fathers out of the Land of Ægypt, even to this day, we would not be brought to believe the Lord our God: and dissipated we revolted, that we might not hear his voice.

²⁰And many evils and maledictions have cloven to us, which our Lord appointed to Moyses his servant: who brought our fathers out of the Land of Ægypt, to give us a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this present day.

²¹And we have not heard the voice of the Lord our God according to all the words of the prophets, which he hath sent to us:

²²and we have gone away every man into the sense of our malignant heart, to serve strange gods, doing evils before the eyes of the Lord our God.