Baruch 2:27-3:8

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

God’s Promise Recalled

²⁷ “Yet you have dealt with us, O Lord our God, in all your kindness and in all your great compassion, ²⁸ as you spoke by your servant Moses on the day when you commanded him to write your law in the presence of the people of Israel, saying, ²⁹ ‘If you will not obey my voice, this very great multitude will surely turn into a small number among the nations, where I will scatter them.^{(A) 30} For I know that they will not obey me, for they are a stiff-necked people. But in the land of their exile they will have a change of heart^{(B) 31} and know that I am the Lord their God. I will give them a heart that obeys and ears that hear;^{(C) 32} they will praise me in the land of their exile and will remember my name ³³ and turn from their stubbornness and their wicked deeds, for they will remember the ways of their ancestors, who sinned before the Lord. ³⁴ I will bring them again into the land that I swore to give to their ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they will rule over it, and I will increase them, and they will not be diminished.^{(D) 35} I will make an everlasting covenant with them to be their God, and they shall be my people, and I will never again remove my people Israel from the land that I have given them.’^(E)

3 “O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, the soul in anguish and the wearied spirit cry out to you. ² Hear, O Lord, and have mercy, for we have sinned before you. ³ For you are enthroned forever, and we are perishing forever.^{(F) 4} O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, hear now the prayer of those of Israel who have died and of the children of those who sinned before you, who did not heed the voice of the Lord their God, so that calamities have clung to us.^{(G) 5} Do not remember the iniquities of our ancestors, but in this crisis remember your power and your name. ⁶ For you are the Lord our God, and it is you, O Lord, whom we will praise. ⁷ For you have put the fear of you in our hearts so that we would call upon your name, and we will praise you in our exile, for we have put away from our hearts all the iniquity of our ancestors who sinned against you.^{(H) 8} See, we are today in our exile where you have scattered us, to be reproached and cursed and punished for all the iniquities of our ancestors, who forsook the Lord our God.”^(I)