Baruch 1:10-2
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
B. Confession of Guilt
10 The message was: “We send you funds, with which you are to procure burnt offerings, sin offerings, and frankincense, and to prepare grain offerings; offer these[a] on the altar of the Lord our God,(A) 11 and pray for the life of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and of Belshazzar, his son,[b] that their lifetimes may be as the days of the heavens above the earth.(B) 12 Pray that the Lord may give us strength, and light to our eyes, that we may live under the protective shadow of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and of Belshazzar, his son, to serve them many days, and find favor in their sight. 13 Pray for us to the Lord, our God, for we have sinned against the Lord, our God. Even to this day the wrath of the Lord and his anger have not turned away from us. 14 On the feast day and during the days of assembly, read aloud in the house of the Lord this scroll that we send you:(C)
15 [c]“To the Lord our God belongs justice; to us, people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, to be shamefaced, as on this day—(D) 16 to us, our kings, rulers, priests, and prophets, and our ancestors. 17 We have sinned in the Lord’s sight 18 and disobeyed him. We have not listened to the voice of the Lord, our God, so as to follow the precepts the Lord set before us. 19 From the day the Lord led our ancestors out of the land of Egypt until the present day, we have been disobedient to the Lord, our God, and neglected to listen to his voice. 20 Even today evils cling to us, the curse the Lord pronounced to Moses, his servant, at the time he led our ancestors out of the land of Egypt to give us a land flowing with milk and honey.(E) 21 For we did not listen to the voice of the Lord, our God, in all the words of the prophets he sent us, 22 but each of us has followed the inclinations of our wicked hearts, served other gods, and done evil in the sight of the Lord, our God.
Chapter 2
1 “So the Lord carried out the warning he had uttered against us: against our judges, who governed Israel, against our kings and princes, and against the people of Israel and Judah. 2 Nowhere under heaven has anything been done like what he did in Jerusalem, as was written in the law of Moses:[d](F) 3 that we would each eat[e] the flesh of our sons, each the flesh of our daughters. 4 He has made us subject to all the kingdoms around us, an object of reproach and horror among all the peoples around us, where the Lord has scattered us.(G) 5 We are brought low, not raised high,(H) because we sinned against the Lord, our God, not listening to his voice.
6 “To the Lord, our God, belongs justice; to us and to our ancestors, to be shamefaced, as on this day.(I) 7 All the evils of which the Lord had warned us have come upon us. 8 We did not entreat the favor of the Lord by turning, each one, from the designs of our evil hearts. 9 The Lord kept watch over the evils, and brought them home to us; for the Lord is just in all the works he commanded us to do,(J) 10 but we did not listen to his voice, or follow the precepts of the Lord which he had set before us.
Footnotes
- 1:10 Offer these: since 2:26 suggests that the Temple is destroyed, the mention of sacrifices here may be an anachronism. Nevertheless, Jer 41:5 indicates that some people continued to worship at the Temple site after Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the Temple.
- 1:11 Nebuchadnezzar…Belshazzar, his son: Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, not of Nebuchadnezzar, the destroyer of Jerusalem. Belshazzar was co-regent for a few years while his father was away in Arabia. Later Jewish tradition seems to have simplified the end of the Babylonian empire (cf. Dn 5:1–2), for three kings came between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus.
- 1:15–2:10 This confession of sin is similar to Dn 9:7–14, and echoes ideas from Deuteronomy and Jeremiah; cf. also Neh 9.
- 2:2 Law of Moses: cf. Dt 28:53–57.
- 2:3 We would each eat: such dreadful events were the result of the prolonged siege of Jerusalem; cf. Lam 2:20.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.