Baruch 1 - New Catholic Bible (NCB)

Introduction^[a]

Chapter 1

Meeting in Babylon. ¹ Following are the words of the book composed by Baruch, son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, son of Zedekiah, son of Hasadiah, son of Hilkiah, in Babylon, ² on the seventh day of the month, during the fifth year after the Chaldeans had captured Jerusalem and destroyed it by fire. ³ Baruch read aloud the text of this book to Jeconiah, son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and to all those who came to hear his words: ⁴ to the nobles, the princes, the elders, and the entire populace of both exalted and lowly rank—that is, all the people who lived in Babylon by the River Sud.^[b]

⁵ Then they wept and fasted and raised their voices in prayer before the Lord. ⁶ A collection was made, with all contributing as much money as they could. ⁷ They sent the proceeds of this collection to Jerusalem, to the high priest Jehoiakim, son of Hilkiah, son of Shallum, and to the priests and all the people who were with him in Jerusalem. ⁸ At the same time, on the tenth day of the month Sivan,^[c] Baruch took the vessels of the house of the Lord that had been stolen from the temple and returned them to the land of Judah. These were the silver vessels that Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, had ordered to be made, ⁹ after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had deported Jeconiah from Jerusalem together with the princes, artisans, nobles, and the people, and brought them to Babylon as captives.

¹⁰ A Message to Jerusalem. This is the message they sent: “Use this money we are sending you to purchase burnt offerings, sin offerings, and frankincense, and to prepare grain offerings. Offer these on the altar of the Lord, our God, ¹¹ along with prayers for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his son Belshazzar,^[d] that their lifetimes may continue as long as the heavens are above the earth. ¹² May the Lord give us strength and wisdom as we live under the protection of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and that of his son Belshazzar, and serve them for many years and enjoy their favor.

¹³ “Pray also to the Lord, our God, for us, for we have sinned against the Lord, our God, and his anger and wrath that we have incurred have not yet been withdrawn from us even to the present day. ¹⁴ Finally, we exhort you to read publicly this book we are sending you in the house of the Lord on the festival days and the days of assembly, ¹⁵ and to proclaim:

Prayer for the Exiles in Babylon^[e]

Confession of Guilt. “Justice is the hallmark of the Lord, our God, and we, the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem, are filled with shame this day, ¹⁶ that we, together with our kings and rulers, our priests and prophets, and our ancestors, ¹⁷ have sinned against the Lord ¹⁸ by refusing to obey him. We have not heeded the commands of the Lord, our God, or obeyed the laws that the Lord enjoined on us.

¹⁹ “From the day the Lord brought our forefathers out of Egypt until the present time, we have disobeyed the Lord, our God, and paid no heed to his voice. ²⁰ Even today we continue to be afflicted with the evils and the curse pronounced by the Lord through his servant Moses when he led forth our ancestors out of Egypt to bestow upon us a land flowing with milk and honey. ²¹ We did not listen to the voice of the Lord, our God, as he spoke to us in the admonitions of the prophets whom he sent to us, ²² but instead followed our own wicked inclinations, choosing to serve other gods and to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, our God.

Footnotes

1. Baruch 1:1 This scenario, which explains the origin of the Book, may have been inspired by the episode of Baruch reading the prophecies before the court at Jerusalem (see Jer 36). However, it is an artificial composition and confuses the dates of known chronology. According to Jer 43:6f, Baruch was taken into Egypt with his master. A later Jewish tradition, however, placed him in Babylonia. This Book imagines him to be in Babylonia at the modest court of King Jeconiah (or Jehoiachin), who was freed from prison in 561 B.C. (see 2 Ki 25:27; Jer 52:31-34), thirty-five years after his deportation. Verse 11 recalls a prince Belshazzar at the time of Nebuchadnezzar; we know of a prince by that name, but he lived at the time of the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C.
2. Baruch 1:4 Sud refers to one of the canals that irrigated Babylon.
3. Baruch 1:8 Sivan: the date corresponds to May-June.
4. Baruch 1:11 Belshazzar: see note on 1:1-15a above.
5. Baruch 1:15 This psalm of collective supplication, which may reprise the prayer of Daniel (Dan 9:4-19), seems to have been part of a penitential liturgy of the time. It testifies to a keen sense of sin.