Baruch 4 Common English Bible

4 She is the scroll containing God’s commandments,
    the Law that exists forever.
All who hold on to her will live,
    but those who desert her will die.
²Jacob, turn and grab on to her.
    Travel toward the rays
    coming from her light.
³Don’t give your honor to another
    or your advantages to a foreign nation.
⁴Israel, we are blessed
    because we know
    what is pleasing to God.

Poem of encouragement

⁵Be confident, my people,
    you who are the legacy of Israel!
⁶You weren’t sold to the nations
for complete destruction,
    but you were handed over
    to your opponents
    because you made God angry.
⁷You upset your creator
    when you sacrificed to demons
    and not to God.
⁸You forgot the eternal God
who raised you;
    and you caused pain to Jerusalem,
    who nurtured you.
⁹Jerusalem saw the wrath of God
that came on you and said:
    Neighbors of Zion, listen!
    God has brought me great grief.
¹⁰I have watched my sons and daughters taken captive,
    the action of the eternal one.
¹¹I nursed them joyfully,
    but I sent them away
    with tears and mourning.

¹²Don’t any of you rejoice over me,
    a widow deserted by many.
My children avoided God’s Law,
    so I was stripped bare
    because of their sins.
¹³They didn’t acknowledge
God’s requirements,
    walk in the ways of
    God’s commandments,
    or follow the paths in which
    his righteousness trained them.
¹⁴Neighbors of Zion, come!
    Remember the exile
    my sons and daughters suffered,
    brought on them by the eternal one.
¹⁵God brought a nation
from far away against them,
    a nation that is shameless
    and speaks a strange language,
    that showed no respect for the elderly or pity for the child.
¹⁶It^[a] took away the widow’s
dearly loved sons
    and deprived the lonely woman
    of her daughters.
¹⁷But how am I able to help you?
¹⁸    The one who brought
    the horrible things on you
        will rescue you
        from your enemies’ grasp.
¹⁹Go, children, go,
    for I have been left desolate.
²⁰I’ve stripped off the robe of peace and put on the rough cloth of mourners.
    I’ll spend my days crying out
    to the eternal one.
²¹Children, be confident! Cry out to God!
    God will rescue you from your enemies’ authority and grip.
²²I have placed hope in the eternal one
for your salvation;
    the holy one has sent me joy,
    because your eternal savior
    will soon have mercy on you.
²³I sent you away
with mourning and wailing,
    but God will restore you to me
    with gladness and joy forever.
²⁴Just as Zion’s neighbors
have now seen your exile,
    they’ll also soon see
    God’s deliverance of you;
    it will come to you with all the glory and splendor of the eternal one.
²⁵Children, bear up patiently
under God’s anger,
    which has come on you.
Your enemy has hunted you down,
    but you’ll soon see their destruction.
    Then you’ll step on their throats.
²⁶My delicate children
have traveled rough roads.
    They were taken as a flock
    snatched away by enemies.
²⁷Children, be confident!
Cry out to God,
    for the one who brought this on you will remember you.
²⁸Just as you plotted
to stray away from God,
    return with ten times as much effort
    to seek him out.
²⁹The one who brought
these horrible things on you
    will bring you eternal joy
    along with your deliverance.

Comfort for Jerusalem

³⁰Jerusalem, be confident!
    The one who named you will comfort you.
³¹Misery will fall upon those
who mistreated you
    and celebrated your fall.
³²Misery will fall upon the cities
that enslaved your young.
    Misery will fall upon the cities^[b]
    that received your children.
³³Just as the enemy^[c] celebrated your fall
    and rejoiced at your misfortune,
    she herself will feel the pain
    of being left desolate.
³⁴I’ll strip away the pride
she has in her great population,
    and turn her arrogance into grief.
³⁵The eternal one will send fire on her
for many days,
    and demons will inhabit her
    for a long time.
³⁶Jerusalem, look to the east
    and see the joy that is coming
    to you from God.
³⁷The children you sent away are coming.
    By the holy one’s word,
        they are coming from the east
        and the west,
        rejoicing in God’s glory.