King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Baruch 2
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1Therefore hath made good his word, which he pronounced against us, and against our judges that judged Israel, and against our kings, and against our princes, and against the men of Israel and , 2To bring upon us great plagues, such as never happened under the whole , as it came to pass in , according to the things that were written in of ; 3That a man should eat of his own son, and of his own daughter. 4Moreover he hath them to be in subjection to all the kingdoms that are round about us, to be as a and desolation among all the people round about, where hath scattered them. 5Thus we were cast down, and not exalted, because we have against our , and have not been obedient unto his voice. 6To our appertaineth : but unto us and to our fathers open , as appeareth this day. 7For all these plagues are come upon us, which hath pronounced against us 8Yet have we not before , that we might turn every one from the imaginations of his . 9Wherefore watched over us for evil, and hath brought it upon us: for is in all his works which he hath commanded us. 10Yet we have not hearkened unto his voice, to walk in of , that he hath set before us. 11And now, O of Israel, that hast brought thy people out of the land of with a mighty hand, and high arm, and with signs, and with wonders, and with great , and hast gotten thyself a name, as appeareth this day: 12O our , we have , we have done ungodly, we have dealt unrighteously in all thine ordinances. 13Let thy turn from us: for we are but left among the heathen, where thou hast scattered us. 14Hear our prayers, O , and our petitions, and us for thine own sake, and give us in the sight of them which have led us away: 15That all the earth may know that thou art our , because Israel and his posterity is called by thy name. 16O , look down from thine house, and consider us: thine ear, O , to hear us. 17Open thine eyes, and behold; for that are in the , whose are taken from their bodies, will give unto neither nor : 18But the that is greatly vexed, which goeth stooping and feeble, and the eyes that fail, and the hungry , will give thee and , O . 19Therefore we do not make our humble before thee, O our , for the of our fathers, and of our kings. 20For thou hast sent out thy and upon us, as thou hast spoken by thy servants , saying, 21Thus saith , your shoulders to the king of : so shall ye in the land that I gave unto your fathers. 22But if ye will not hear , to the king of , 23I will cause to cease out of the cites of Judah, and from without , the voice of mirth, and the voice of joy, the voice of the , and the voice of the : and the whole land shall be desolate of inhabitants. 24But we would not unto thy voice, to the king of : therefore hast thou made good the words that thou spakest by thy servants , namely, that the bones of our kings, and the bones of our fathers, should be taken out of their place. 25And, lo, they are cast out to the heat of the day, and to the frost of the night, and they in great miseries by , by , and by pestilence. 26And the house which is called by thy name hast thou laid waste, as it is to be seen this day, for the wickedness of the and the house of . 27O our , thou hast dealt with us after all thy goodness, and according to all that great mercy of thine, 28As thou spakest by thy servant in the day when thou didst command him to write before the , saying, 29If ye will not , surely this very great multitude shall be turned into a small number among the nations, where I will scatter them. 30For I knew that they would not hear me, because it is a people: but in the land of their captivities they shall remember themselves. 31And shall know that I am their : for I will give them an , and ears to hear: 32And they shall me in the land of their , and think upon my name, 33And return from their stiff neck, and from their deeds: for they shall remember of their fathers, which before . 34And I will bring them again into the land which I promised with an unto their fathers, , , and , and they shall be lords of it: and I will increase them, and they shall not be diminished. 35And I will make an with them to be their , and they shall be my people: and I will no more drive my people of Israel out of the land that I have given them.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.