2 Baruch

Introduction

There are books that survive the centuries because they entertain, and there are books that survive because they speak to something so fundamental in human experience that no amount of time can render them obsolete. The text you are about to read belongs firmly to the second category. Written in the shadow of one of the most catastrophic events in Jewish history — the destruction of Jerusalem and its sacred Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, though almost certainly composed in response to the Roman destruction of 70 CE — this ancient apocalypse has endured for nearly two millennia as one of the most searching, emotionally raw, and theologically ambitious documents ever produced by a community in crisis. It asks, with unflinching directness, the questions that every human being eventually confronts: Why do the righteous suffer? Why does God permit the destruction of what is holy? What is left to hope for when everything that gave life meaning has been taken away? And what, if anything, lies on the other side of catastrophe?

The prophet Baruch, son of Neriah, was a historical figure — the devoted scribe and companion of the prophet Jeremiah, a man who witnessed the fall of Jerusalem firsthand and recorded some of the most anguished prophetic literature in the Hebrew Bible. It is in his voice, and in the authority that voice carried for ancient Jewish readers, that this apocalypse speaks. The choice of Baruch as narrator was not arbitrary. He was a man already associated with grief, with faithfulness under pressure, with the terrible work of bearing witness to destruction and continuing to write anyway. To place these visions and lamentations in his mouth was to root them in a tradition of honest, unsparing theological reflection — a tradition that refused to look away from suffering and refused, equally, to let suffering have the final word.

The text itself is extraordinary in its structure and its emotional range. It moves between genres with the confidence of a work that knows exactly what it is doing: there are laments of heartbreaking beauty, dialogues with God that crackle with tension and even something approaching argument, elaborate apocalyptic visions filled with symbolic imagery that demands careful interpretation, letters addressed to dispersed communities, and long meditative discourses on the nature of the soul, the afterlife, and the coming age. Reading it is an experience that defies easy categorization. At moments it reads like Job — a solitary figure wrestling with the divine in the aftermath of loss. At other moments it resembles Daniel, with its coded visions of world empires and its insistence that history, however chaotic it appears, is moving toward a divinely ordained conclusion. And at still other moments it achieves a lyrical intimacy that feels almost like the Psalms, as if the author is reaching past doctrine and argument to touch something wordless at the center of human grief.

For modern readers coming to this text for the first time, it is worth pausing to appreciate just how remarkable its survival is. The original language in which it was composed — almost certainly Hebrew or Aramaic — has been lost. What we possess is a Syriac translation, itself made from a Greek intermediary that has also largely vanished. The Syriac manuscript tradition, centered on a single sixth-century manuscript discovered in the Ambrosian Library in Milan and published for the first time in 1866 by Antonio Ceriani, preserved this text when virtually every other transmission chain had broken. That a work of such depth and complexity should have survived in this precarious, attenuated fashion — a translation of a translation, preserved in a single library — gives it an almost miraculous quality. We are holding, in a very real sense, something that nearly did not make it to us at all.

The question of dating and authorship is one that scholars have debated with considerable energy, and while certainty is impossible, the broad outlines of the consensus are worth understanding before you begin reading. The overwhelming majority of scholars today believe the text was composed sometime between 70 CE and the early second century CE, most likely in the decades immediately following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple. The use of the Babylonian destruction as a literary setting for what is clearly a meditation on Roman devastation was a common and well-understood literary convention in this period — one employed also in 4 Ezra, a closely related apocalypse with which this text shares so many themes and concerns that the two are often studied together. The author was almost certainly a Jewish writer of considerable learning, deeply immersed in biblical tradition, who was attempting to make theological sense of what must have felt like the end of the world as his community knew it.

The destruction of the Temple in 70 CE was not simply a political or military catastrophe, though it was certainly those things. It was a theological earthquake. The Temple was not merely a building — it was the axis mundi of Jewish religious life, the place where heaven and earth met, where atonement was made, where the presence of God was understood to dwell in a uniquely concentrated way. When the Romans burned it to the ground, they did not just destroy a structure; they destroyed an entire system of meaning. The sacrificial cult that had organized Jewish religious practice for centuries was gone. The priesthood that had mediated between the human and the divine was suddenly without a function. The holy city itself lay in ruins. And the question that hung over all of this, the question that this text confronts with extraordinary courage, was simply: Where is God in this? How can a God who chose this people, who promised them this land, who dwelt in this Temple, have permitted this to happen? And what does it mean to remain faithful to such a God in the aftermath of such devastation?

These are not abstract theological questions. They are the questions of people who have lost everything and are trying to find a reason to continue. And it is the genius of this ancient apocalypse that it does not offer easy answers. It does not paper over the pain with pious platitudes or demand that its readers simply trust and be silent. Instead, it dramatizes the struggle — it shows us a figure who argues, who weeps, who sits in the ruins and refuses to be comforted, who demands explanations and receives them only partially and gradually, who must work his way through grief to something that might, eventually, be called hope. The journey the text takes us on is not a straight line from despair to consolation. It is winding and difficult and honest, and that honesty is what has kept it alive.

A World on the Edge of Ending

To read this text well, it helps to understand the world that produced it — not just the historical circumstances, but the intellectual and spiritual atmosphere of late Second Temple Judaism, a world saturated with apocalyptic expectation and alive with competing visions of how God would ultimately act in history. The word 'apocalypse' comes from the Greek for 'unveiling' or 'revelation,' and apocalyptic literature is, at its core, literature of disclosure — the pulling back of a curtain to reveal the hidden structures of reality, the secret purposes of God, the true meaning of historical events that appear, on the surface, to be nothing more than the random violence of empires.

Apocalyptic thinking arose, in large part, as a response to precisely the kind of crisis that this text addresses: the experience of a community that believed itself chosen by God, yet found itself crushed by foreign powers, its institutions destroyed, its hopes apparently defeated. The apocalyptic response to this experience was not despair and not simple resignation. It was, rather, a radical reframing of the situation. Yes, things look terrible. Yes, the enemy has won, the Temple is gone, the people are scattered. But this is not the whole picture. Behind the visible surface of events, God is at work. History has a shape, a direction, a destination. The suffering of the present moment is not meaningless — it is part of a larger story whose ending has already been written, and that ending is not defeat but vindication.

This was a powerful and sustaining vision, and it gave rise to a remarkable body of literature. The book of Daniel, written in the second century BCE in response to the persecution of the Jews by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, is the canonical example within the Hebrew Bible. But around and after Daniel, a vast literature of apocalyptic texts flourished — 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, the Apocalypse of Abraham, the Testament of Moses, and many others. These texts circulated widely, were read with intense interest, and shaped the spiritual imagination of Jewish communities across the ancient world. They developed elaborate symbolic vocabularies — beasts representing empires, cosmic battles between angels and demons, heavenly journeys, divine throne-room visions — that their original audiences would have understood with a fluency that we, as modern readers, must work to recover.

The text before you is deeply embedded in this tradition. Its visions draw on imagery that would have resonated immediately with readers familiar with Daniel, with Ezekiel, with the Enochic literature. Its theological concerns — the problem of divine justice, the fate of the soul after death, the nature of the coming age, the resurrection of the dead — were the central preoccupations of the apocalyptic movement. But what distinguishes this particular apocalypse from many of its contemporaries is the quality of its emotional and psychological depth. Where some apocalyptic texts are primarily interested in the mechanics of the end — the sequence of events, the identity of the players, the timetable of divine intervention — this one is primarily interested in the human being who must live through the waiting. It is not just a map of the future. It is a portrait of a soul in crisis.

The figure of Baruch as the text presents him is a complex and fully realized character. He is not a passive vessel for divine revelation; he is an active, questioning, sometimes anguished participant in a dialogue with God that spans the entire text. He intercedes for his people. He argues on their behalf. He expresses bewilderment and grief with a directness that is, even today, startling in its emotional honesty. When he sits among the ruins of Jerusalem and weeps, we feel the weight of that grief. When he challenges God with the apparent injustice of what has happened, we recognize the voice of every human being who has ever stood in the wreckage of something precious and demanded to know why. And when he receives answers — partial, mysterious, demanding further reflection — we understand that the text is not offering us a simple resolution but inviting us into an ongoing conversation.

The theological vision that emerges from this conversation is rich and multi-layered. One of its central concerns is the relationship between this age and the age to come — what the text calls, in the idiom of its time, the present world and the world that is coming. This distinction is fundamental to apocalyptic thinking, and the text develops it with considerable sophistication. The present world is the world of suffering, of injustice, of death — the world in which empires rise and fall and the righteous are crushed along with the wicked. But this world is not ultimate. It is passing away, giving place to something new, something that will be characterized by justice, by the vindication of the righteous, by the restoration of all that has been lost. The resurrection of the dead, which the text describes in passages of remarkable vividness, is central to this vision — it is the guarantee that death does not have the final word, that the lives of those who suffered faithfully will be fully restored and rewarded.

But the text is careful not to make this future hope an excuse for indifference to the present. The question of how to live faithfully in the time between the destruction and the restoration is one of its persistent concerns. The answer it develops — centered on Torah, on the study and observance of the divine law as the portable homeland of a people without a Temple or a land — was, historically speaking, enormously consequential. It points toward the rabbinic Judaism that would emerge in the centuries following 70 CE as the dominant form of Jewish life, a Judaism that found in the Torah itself the sacred center that the Temple had once provided. In this sense, the text is not just a response to catastrophe but a blueprint for survival — a vision of how a community can maintain its identity and its hope when all the external structures that once supported them have been destroyed.

The visions themselves, which form some of the most striking passages in the text, operate on multiple levels simultaneously. On one level, they are predictions — coded accounts of historical events and future developments that the original audience would have decoded with varying degrees of confidence. On another level, they are theological arguments — symbolic representations of the author's convictions about the nature of history and the purposes of God. And on a third level, they are aesthetic experiences — elaborate, carefully constructed images that work on the imagination in ways that straightforward argument cannot. The vision of the dark and bright waters, for instance, is not simply a historical allegory. It is a meditation on the alternating character of human history, the way darkness and light succeed each other in a pattern that, properly understood, points toward an ultimate brightness that will never be succeeded by darkness again. To read these visions well is to allow them to work on multiple levels at once — to follow the argument while also surrendering to the imagery.

Why This Text Still Matters

It would be a mistake to approach this ancient apocalypse as merely a historical document — a curious artifact of a distant world that we study with scholarly detachment but cannot expect to speak to us directly. The questions it raises are not period pieces. They are permanent features of the human landscape, and any honest reader who has lived through loss, witnessed injustice, or struggled to maintain faith in the face of suffering will find, in this text, a voice that speaks across the centuries with uncanny directness.

The problem of theodicy — the attempt to reconcile the existence of a good and powerful God with the reality of evil and suffering — has never been solved to everyone's satisfaction, and this text does not pretend to solve it. What it does instead is something more valuable: it models a way of engaging with the problem that is neither glib nor despairing. It shows us a person who takes both his faith and his pain with absolute seriousness, who refuses to choose between them, who insists on holding both in tension until something — not a solution, exactly, but a new orientation, a new capacity for hope — begins to emerge. This is not a comfortable process, and the text does not make it comfortable. But it is an honest one, and that honesty is what gives it its enduring power.

There is also something to be said about the text's treatment of community and individual in the face of catastrophe. One of its recurring concerns is the question of how the fate of individuals relates to the fate of the collective — how the suffering of a whole people can be understood in relation to the choices and actions of individual members of that people, and how the hope of restoration can be held both personally and communally. These are questions that any community that has experienced collective trauma will recognize, and the text's wrestling with them has a relevance that extends far beyond its original context. Communities that have faced genocide, displacement, cultural destruction, and the loss of everything that once defined them have found, in literature like this, not just consolation but a vocabulary for understanding their own experience.

The text's vision of the afterlife and the resurrection deserves particular attention, both for its intrinsic interest and for its historical significance. The passages in which the fate of the soul after death is described are among the most detailed and vivid in all of ancient Jewish literature. The text describes a kind of intermediate state in which souls await the final judgment, and then a resurrection in which the body is restored before being transformed into something new and incorruptible. The moral logic of this vision is clear: the inequities of the present life — the suffering of the righteous, the prosperity of the wicked — will be fully and finally corrected. This is not wishful thinking but a theological conviction rooted in the character of God as the text understands it: a God whose justice is real, whose promises are kept, and whose purposes cannot ultimately be thwarted by any human or imperial power.

For readers with an interest in the history of early Christianity, this text is also invaluable. The New Testament was written in the same cultural and intellectual milieu that produced this apocalypse, and many of its themes — the resurrection of the dead, the coming judgment, the nature of the messianic age, the relationship between suffering and glory — are shared with it. Reading this text alongside the New Testament illuminates both, revealing the common stock of ideas and images from which both drew, and making visible the ways in which early Christian writers were engaging with, adapting, and sometimes departing from the apocalyptic tradition they inherited. The figure of the Messiah, who appears in this text in passages of considerable importance, is particularly interesting in this comparative context — a figure whose character and function overlap with, but are not identical to, the Christian understanding of Jesus.

The literary quality of the text also deserves recognition in its own right, independent of its historical and theological significance. The laments, in particular, achieve a genuinely poetic power. The image of Jerusalem as a mother mourning her children, which appears in one of the most memorable passages, draws on a long tradition of biblical personification but develops it with a freshness and emotional intensity that is all its own. The dialogues between Baruch and God have a dramatic quality that makes them compelling reading even apart from their content — the rhythm of question and answer, of challenge and response, of grief gradually giving way to something more like acceptance, is handled with real narrative skill. And the letters that appear toward the end of the text — addressed to the exiled communities of Israel — have a pastoral warmth and directness that stand in interesting contrast to the more elevated register of the visions and discourses.

The translator's challenge with a text like this is significant, and readers should be aware that what they are reading is, in a sense, already an interpretation. The Syriac in which the text survives is itself a translation, and the decisions made by ancient translators inevitably shaped the meaning of the text in ways we cannot always recover. Modern translations must navigate between fidelity to the surviving text and accessibility for contemporary readers, and different translators have made different choices about where to draw that line. What matters most, in the end, is that the essential character of the work comes through — its emotional honesty, its theological seriousness, its refusal of easy answers, its stubborn insistence on hope.

As you prepare to enter this ancient world, it is worth cultivating a certain kind of patience — the patience to sit with questions that are not immediately resolved, to follow arguments that circle back on themselves, to allow imagery to work on you before you rush to decode it. This is not a text that rewards hasty reading. It is a text that rewards the kind of slow, attentive engagement that we bring to great poetry or great music — a willingness to be in the presence of something that exceeds our immediate comprehension, trusting that repeated encounter will yield ever deeper understanding.

The world that produced this text is gone. The Temple it mourns has not been rebuilt. The specific historical circumstances that gave rise to its anguished questions belong to a past that is, in many ways, irrecoverable. And yet the text itself remains, astonishingly alive, speaking in a voice that has lost none of its urgency across two thousand years. It speaks to everyone who has ever loved something and lost it, everyone who has ever demanded justice from a universe that seemed indifferent, everyone who has ever tried to hold on to hope when all the evidence seemed to argue against it. It speaks, in other words, to the whole of human experience. That is why it has survived. That is why it matters. And that is why, as you turn the first page and enter the grief-stricken, vision-haunted, stubbornly hopeful world of Baruch son of Neriah, you are about to read something that may stay with you for a very long time.

2 Baruch

Baruch's Lament and God's First Answer

I said: "O Lord, my Lord, have I come into the world for this purpose — to see the evils of my mother? No, my Lord. If I have found grace in your sight, take my spirit first, so that I may go to my fathers and not behold the destruction of my mother. Two things press hard upon me: I cannot resist you, and yet my soul cannot bear to watch the evils of my mother. But one thing I will say in your presence, O Lord. What will there be after these things? If you destroy your city and deliver your land to those who hate us, how shall the name of Israel be remembered again? How shall anyone speak your praises? To whom shall the things in your law be explained? Shall the world return to its nature as it was at the beginning, and the age revert to primeval silence? Shall the multitude of souls be taken away, and the nature of man be named no more? And where is all that which you said to Moses concerning us?"

The Lord said to me: "This city shall be delivered up for a time, and the people shall be chastened for a time, but the world will not be given over to oblivion.

"Do you think that this is the city of which I said, 'On the palms of my hands have I engraved you'? This building now built in your midst is not the one that is revealed with me — the one that was prepared beforehand from the time when I took counsel to make Paradise, and showed it to Adam before he sinned. When he transgressed the commandment it was removed from him, as Paradise also was removed. After these things I showed it to my servant Abraham by night among the divided portions of the sacrificial victims. Again I showed it to Moses on Mount Sinai, when I showed him the likeness of the tabernacle and all its vessels. And now, behold, it is preserved with me, as Paradise also is preserved. Go, therefore, and do as I command you."

Baruch's Lament and God's Reassurance

And I answered and said: "So then I am destined to grieve for Zion, for your enemies will come to this place and pollute your sanctuary, and lead your inheritance into captivity, and make themselves masters of those whom you have loved. They will depart again to the place of their idols and boast before them. What will you do for your great name?"

And the Lord said to me: "My name and my glory are unto all eternity, and my judgement shall maintain its right in its own time. You shall see with your own eyes that the enemy will not overthrow Zion, nor shall they burn Jerusalem, but they will serve as ministers of the Judge for the appointed time. Now go and do whatever I have said to you."

So I went and took Jeremiah, and Adu, and Seriah, and Jabish, and Gedaliah, and all the honourable men of the people, and I led them to the valley of Cedron, and I told them everything that had been said to me. They lifted up their voices and wept, every one of them. We sat there and fasted until the evening.

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The Invasion of the Chaldeans and the Hiding of the Sacred Vessels

It came to pass on the following day that the army of the Chaldeans surrounded the city. At the time of evening I, Baruch, left the people and went out and stood by the oak. I was grieving over Zion and lamenting over the captivity that had come upon the people.

Then suddenly a strong spirit lifted me up and carried me aloft over the wall of Jerusalem. I looked, and I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the city, each of them holding a torch of fire in his hands. And another angel began to descend from heaven and said to them: "Hold your lamps and do not light them until I tell you. For I am first sent to speak a word to the earth and to place in it what the Lord the Most High has commanded me."

And I watched him descend into the Holy of Holies, and he took from there the veil, and the holy ark, and the mercy-seat, and the two tablets, and the holy raiment of the priests, and the altar of incense, and the forty-eight precious stones with which the priest was adorned, and all the holy vessels of the tabernacle. And he spoke to the earth with a loud voice and said:

"Earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the mighty God, and receive what I commit to you, and guard them until the last times, so that you may restore them when you are commanded, and the strangers shall not get possession of them. For the time has come when Jerusalem will also be delivered up for a time, until the moment when it is said that it will be restored forever."

And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up.

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The Angels Destroy the Walls

After this I heard that angel saying to those angels who held the torches: "Destroy the walls and overthrow them to their foundations, so that the enemies do not boast and say, 'We have overthrown the wall of Zion, and we have burned the place of the mighty God.'" And they restored those places and overthrew the walls.

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The Chaldeans Enter the City

And after these things I heard the angel saying to those angels: "Now go and do what you have been commanded." And they went and overthrew the corners of the walls, and the enemies entered and took possession of the city. And after these things, when the city had been captured, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came and entered the city and took up his abode there.

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Baruch's Lamentation over Zion

And I, Baruch, came and sat down under an oak, and I was grieving over Zion, and I lamented over the captivity that had come upon the people. And I said:

"Blessed is he who was not born, or he who was born and died. But as for us who live, woe to us, because we see the afflictions of Zion and what has befallen Jerusalem. I will call the Sirens from the sea, and you Lilin come from the desert, and you Shedim and dragons from the forests. Awake and gird up your loins to mourn, and take up with me the dirges, and lament with me. You farmers, sow not again. And you, O earth, why do you give your harvest fruits? Keep within yourself the sweets of your sustenance. And you, vine, why do you still give your wine? For an offering will no longer be made from you in Zion, nor will first-fruits be offered again. And you, heaven, withhold your dew, and do not open the treasuries of rain. And you, sun, withhold the light of your rays. And you, moon, extinguish the multitude of your light. For why should light rise again where the light of Zion is darkened?

"Be in mourning, you who were not anxious to be married, and do not set yourselves as a bride's adornment, you who were brides, and mourn and lament, for the time of Zion's desolation has come. Her bridal chamber is laid waste, and the garlands of her brides are withered, and the sceptre of her kings is broken, and her glory is turned to dust, and the place of her strength is brought low."

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God Speaks to Baruch

And when I had said these things, I wept greatly, and I said: "O Lord, you have called this age into being for our sakes. And you have said that you would not forget us nor forsake us, but that you would visit us at all times. Behold, now we see the princes of Babylon prospering, and the people of Jacob in affliction. We see the people of Babylon ruling, and we are scattered over the earth. We see the towers of Zion demolished, and the altar of the Mighty One destroyed, and the sanctuary laid waste, and the holy ark carried away into captivity, and the priests burned, and the Levites gone into captivity, and the virgins defiled, and the priests married to strangers, and the sons of Israel led away captive, and the elders sitting on the ground in silence, and the elders clothed in sackcloth, and the beauty of the women of Zion is tarnished, and the throne of David is overthrown.

"If these things have come to pass, O Lord, why then has all this befallen us? And yet now, despite all this, you have not spared us, but have delivered us into the hands of our enemies. And what advantage is it to us if there is promised to us an immortal time, whereas we have been brought to destruction and there is no mercy shown to us? And the nations say among themselves, 'Where is their God?' Behold, they are among us in servitude and affliction. You who have forsaken Zion, what will you do? And those who have done evil, to whom will they go?"

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God's Answer

And the Lord answered and said to me: "You have prayed rightly, Baruch, and all your words have been heard. But my judgement demands its due, and my law requires its rights. For your sins have brought these things upon you, but it is not as a final end that I have abandoned you. Do not be afraid because of what you have seen. For the time is coming when everything that has perished will be restored, and the hope for which you hope will not be cut off. Go therefore and sanctify yourself seven days, and eat no bread and drink no water, and speak to no one. And afterward come to this place, and I will reveal myself to you, and I will speak true things with you, and I will command you concerning everything that will happen to your people."

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Baruch Goes to the People

And I went from there and sat in the valley of Cedron in a cave of the earth, and I sanctified myself there and ate no bread, yet I was not hungry, and I drank no water, yet I did not thirst, and I was there until the seventh day, as he had commanded me.

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Baruch's Prayer

And after seven days I came to that place where he had spoken with me. And it came to pass at sunset that my soul took much thought, and I began to speak in the presence of the Mighty One, and said:

"O Lord, my Lord, you call the times into being, and they stand before you. You cause the power of the ages to pass away, and they do not resist you. You arrange the course of the seasons, and they obey you. You alone know the length of the generations, and you do not reveal your mysteries to many. You make known the multitude of the fire, and you weigh the lightness of the wind. You explore the limit of the heights, and you scrutinize the depths of the darkness. You command the number that passes away and that which is preserved, and to you the deep places and the hidden chambers are open. You rule with great thought, and you govern the creatures that exist, without any helper. You alone are able to sustain all things.

"Behold, I will speak before you, O Lord my God. You created this earth for the sake of your people. You did not reveal this purpose of creation to all generations from the beginning, but only to those who did not sin before you. The length of the law was for those who came into the world, but those who sinned have not kept it, and those who were wise in their own eyes have not understood it. Therefore the multitude of the nations is led astray, and those who have not known your covenant have lived without your law.

"Now, O Lord, behold these nations which are counted as nothing, which are lords over us and devour us. And we your people, whom you have called your firstborn, your only begotten, and your fervent lover, are given into their hands. If the world has indeed been created for our sakes, why do we not possess our world as an inheritance? How long will these things endure? And when will that which has been promised come to pass?"

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God's Reply

And the Mighty One answered and said to me: "You are rightly astonished at the departure of Zion. But if you had known the way of the Most High, you would then have understood also that the time that has now passed is not the end, and that the Mighty One's strength is not exhausted. For in the end of days everything will be renewed. For the youth of the world is past, and the strength of creation is already exhausted, and the advent of the times is very short, yes, they have passed by. And the pitcher is near to the cistern, and the ship to the port, and the course of the journey to the city, and life to its consummation.

"And again, prepare yourself, and when you have prepared yourself, then give instructions as far as possible, and complete what you are commanded. For I am going to speak to you and to instruct you. I have said these things to you so that you may hear, and when you have heard you may tell them to your people, and that you may instruct those who are wise among your people, whose heart you know is able to receive and retain the wisdom. And after this you shall depart from this place."

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Baruch Speaks to the People

And I went to the people and sat there, and I called Jeremiah and Jabish and Seriah and Gedaliah and all the leaders of the people, and I said to them: "Hear, O children of Israel, behold how many of you remain from the twelve tribes of Israel. It has come to pass that when Zion was delivered up, all of us who are here went into captivity, and the rest of our brothers were scattered. Now therefore, if you direct your ways, you will not depart as your brothers departed, but they will come to you. For he who is merciful is more merciful than you think, and he is more abundant in goodness than your minds can conceive. For he does not depart from us forever, and he has not forgotten us, but he has brought these calamities upon us for our instruction, lest we should come in the end to be condemned and not praised.

"Now, my brothers, I tell you that if you prepare your hearts and sow in them the fruits of the law, it will protect you in that time in which the Mighty One is to shake the whole creation. For after a little time the building of Zion will be shaken in order that it may be built again. But that building will not remain, rather it will again be uprooted after some time and will remain desolate for a time. And after that it must be renewed in glory and perfected forevermore. Therefore we should not be distressed so much over the evil that has now come as over that which is still to be. For there will be a greater trial than these two tribulations when the Mighty One will renew his creation. And now do not draw near to me for a few days, and do not seek me until I come to you."

And it came to pass when I had spoken all these words to them that I, Baruch, went away, and the people returned to their places.

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Baruch's Second Prayer

And after these things I, Baruch, fasted for seven days. And after that I came to that place and sat there. And I lifted up my voice and said:

"O Lord, you summon the coming of the times, and they stand before you. You cause the power of the ages to pass away, and they do not resist you. You arrange the course of the seasons, and they obey you. You alone know the length of the generations, and you do not reveal your mysteries to many. You make known the multitude of the fire, and you weigh the lightness of the wind. You explore the limit of the heights, and you scrutinize the depths of the darkness. You command the number that passes away and that which is preserved, and to you the deep places and the hidden chambers are open.

"You rule with great thought, and you govern the creatures that exist without any helper. You alone are able to sustain all things. You are he who hears and knows all things, and you see the sins of men, and you know their works, and you know the end of all things. You are he who commands the number of men who are born, and you hold back the power of the flame, and you turn back the wrath of fire, and you make the lightning flash, and you thunder with the voice of your majesty, and you shake the foundations of the earth. You gather the waves of the sea and plant the roots of the mountains. You bring down the heights of the mountains and bring up the depths of the sea. You bring to nothing the understanding of the proud, and you root out the assembly of the unjust. You plant the righteous in their place, and you uproot the wicked from their place.

"You bring down the mighty without effort, and you raise up the lowly without labor. You are he who kills and makes alive. You are he who brings down to Sheol and brings up again. You are he who makes the earth tremble and shakes the kingdoms. You are he who makes the mountains to quake and the hills to tremble. You are he who makes the sea to roar and stills the waves. You are he who makes the clouds to thunder and sends the rain. You are he who makes the snow to fall and the ice to freeze. You are he who makes the rivers to flow and the fountains to spring up. You are he who makes the trees to grow and the grass to spring up. You are he who makes the beasts to multiply and the birds to fly. You are he who makes the fish to swim and the worms to creep. You are he who makes the sun to rise and the moon to shine. You are he who makes the stars to appear and the planets to move.

"You are he who has chosen Abraham and loved him, and you made a covenant with him and his descendants. You are he who promised him that his seed would be as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea. You are he who brought his descendants out of Egypt and led them through the wilderness. You are he who gave them the law and the commandments, and you are he who brought them into the land that you promised to their fathers.

"And now, O Lord, behold, these nations which are counted as nothing are lords over us and devour us. And we, your people, whom you have called your firstborn, your only begotten, and your fervent lover, are given into their hands. If the world has indeed been created for our sakes, why do we not possess our world as an inheritance? How long will these things endure? And when will that which has been promised come to pass?"

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God's Answer to Baruch's Prayer

And the Mighty One answered and said to me: "The things that are now will pass away, and the things that are to come will be established. For the time is coming when everything that has perished will be restored, and the hope for which you hope will not be cut off. For I know the afflictions of my people, and I have not forgotten the promise that I made to their fathers. And I will gather them from all the lands to which I have scattered them, and I will bring them back to the land that I promised to their fathers, and they will possess it. And I will be their God, and they will be my people. And I will make a new covenant with them, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant they broke. But this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be my people. And no longer will each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will

Baruch Remains at Jerusalem; Jeremiah Goes to Babylon

Baruch and Jeremiah, whose heart was found pure from sins and who had not been captured in the seizure of the city, came together to the ruins. They tore their garments, wept, mourned, and fasted for seven days.

After seven days, the word of God came to Baruch and said: "Tell Jeremiah to go and support the captivity of the people into Babylon. But you are to remain here amid the desolation of Zion, and after these days I will show you what will happen at the end of days."

Baruch told Jeremiah what the Lord had commanded. Jeremiah departed with the people, but Baruch returned and sat before the gates of the temple, and he lamented over Zion with the following lamentation:

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Baruch's Dirge over Zion

Blessed is the one who was never born,

or who, having been born, has died.

But as for us who live, woe to us,

because we see the afflictions of Zion

and what has befallen Jerusalem.

I will call the sirens from the sea,

and you spirits of the night, come from the desert,

and you demons and dragons from the forests.

Awake and gird up your loins for mourning,

take up the dirges with me,

and make lamentation alongside me.

You farmers, sow no more seed.

O earth, why do you still yield your harvest fruits?

Keep within yourself the sweetness of your sustenance.

And you, vine, why do you still give your wine?

For no offering will again be made from it in Zion,

and no first-fruits will again be brought there.

Baruch's Lament Over Jerusalem

O heavens, hold back your dew, and do not open the treasuries of rain. O sun, withhold the light of your rays. O moon, put out the abundance of your light. For why should light rise again where the light of Zion is darkened?

And you, bridegrooms, do not enter in, and let not the brides adorn themselves with garlands. And you, women, do not pray that you may bear children. For the barren shall above all rejoice, and those who have no sons shall be glad, and those who have sons shall have anguish. For why should they bear in pain only to bury in grief? Or why again should mankind have sons, or why should the seed of their kind again be named, when this mother is desolate and her sons are led into captivity?

From this time forward speak not of beauty, and do not discourse of gracefulness.

Moreover, you priests, take the keys of the sanctuary and cast them into the height of heaven, and give them to the Lord and say: Guard your house yourself, for we have been found false stewards.

And you, virgins who weave fine linen and silk with gold of Ophir, take all these things in haste and cast them into the fire, that it may carry them to him who made them, and the flame send them to him who created them, lest the enemy take possession of them.

Baruch's Words Against Babylon

Moreover, I, Baruch, say this against you, Babylon: If you had prospered and Zion had dwelt in her glory, even then the grief to us would have been great that you should be equal to Zion. But now the grief is infinite and the lamentation measureless, for you are prospering and Zion is desolate. Who will be judge in these matters? Or to whom shall we complain about what has befallen us? O Lord, how have you endured it?

But I will say what I think, and I will speak against you, O land that is prospering. The noonday does not always burn, nor do the rays of the sun constantly give light. Do not expect to be always prosperous and rejoicing, and do not be greatly lifted up and boastful. For assuredly in its own season the divine wrath will awake against you, which now in long-suffering is held back as if by reins.

The Sleep of the Righteous

Our fathers went to their rest without grief, and the righteous sleep in the earth in tranquility. For they knew not this anguish, nor had they heard of what has befallen us. Would that you had ears, O earth, and that you had a heart, O dust, that you might go and announce in Sheol: Blessed are you more than we who live.

The Second Fast and Revelation

After I had said these things, I fasted for seven days.

God Speaks to Baruch

And it came to pass after these things that I, Baruch, was standing on Mount Zion, and there came a voice from the height and said to me: Stand upon your feet, Baruch, and hear the word of the mighty God. Because you have been astonished at what has befallen Zion, you will therefore be preserved until the end of times to receive testimony regarding the judgment. For whether the righteous can endure the difficult things, or whether those who are prosperous can be condemned, these things you shall declare.

Go therefore and set yourself in the valley, and I will show you there the judgment of my power, and what will happen to those who have done evil and to those who have done good.

Baruch Sees the Judgment

And I went and stood in the valley as he commanded me, and I saw two mountains, one on the right and one on the left. And I saw a vine and a fountain and a cedar. And I said: Is this the vision that you have shown me? And he answered and said to me: These things will remain until the end of times, and they will be for a sign. Listen, and I will tell you their meaning.

The vine is the people of Israel, the fountain is the law, and the cedar is the kingdom that will destroy Zion. But the vine and the fountain will endure, and the cedar will be cut down and burned, and its ashes will be scattered by the wind.

Baruch's Dialogue with God About the Nations

And I answered and said: O Lord, you have shown me the judgment of the nations, but you have not shown me the judgment of Israel. What will become of your people? And he answered and said to me: Israel will not be given over to the nations forever. The time is coming when they will be gathered from among the nations where they have been scattered, and they will return to their own land.

And I said: But, Lord, how long will this time be? And he said to me: A time and times and half a time.

Baruch Questions God About the Righteous and the Wicked

And I answered and said: O Lord, you have shown me many things, and you have made known to me many secrets. Now show me also whether the righteous who have died will live again, and whether those who have done evil will be punished. And he answered and said to me: Hear, Baruch, and I will speak to you. The earth will surely give back the dead at that time, for it receives them now in order to keep them, not changing anything in their form. For as it received them, so it will restore them, and as I delivered them to it, so also will it raise them.

The Resurrection of the Dead

For it will be necessary to show to the living that the dead have come to life again, and that those who had departed have returned. And it will come to pass, when they have recognized one another, those who know each other, that then judgment will grow strong, and those things which were spoken of before will come.

And it will come to pass after this that the appearance of those who are condemned will become worse, and the glory of those who are justified will be greater. For the appearance of the wicked will be made more evil than it is, so that they may suffer torment. But the glory of those who have now been justified in my law, who have had understanding in their life, and who have planted the root of wisdom in their heart, their splendor will then be glorified in changes, and the shape of their face will be turned into the light of their beauty, so that they may be able to acquire and receive the world which does not die, which is then promised to them.

The Messiah

And it will come to pass after these things, when the time of the appearance of the Anointed One has been fulfilled, that he will return in glory. Then all who have fallen asleep in hope of him will rise again. And it will come to pass at that time that the treasuries will be opened in which is preserved the number of the souls of the righteous, and they will come out, and a multitude of souls will be seen together in one assemblage of one thought, and the first ones will rejoice and the last ones will not be grieved. For they know that the time has come of which it is said that it is the consummation of the times.

The Cloud Vision and the Black and Bright Waters

And it came to pass after these things that I saw a great cloud ascending from the sea, and I looked and it covered all the earth. And after this the cloud began to pour upon the earth waters that were black, and after this there were bright waters, and after this dark again, and after this bright again. This was done twelve times, but the last waters were blacker than all that had been before them, and the bright waters were brighter than all that had been before them.

And I asked the angel who was with me and said: What are these waters? And he said to me: These are the twelve periods of that time, and each one of them is reserved and kept until the time of its own, and these periods will follow one after another.

And the first black waters which you saw descending from the cloud are the transgressions which Adam committed when he fell in the garden. And because of his transgression death was decreed against those who were to be born. And the bright waters which came after them are the repentance of Noah and the covenant which God made with him after the flood.

And the second black waters are the sins of the generation of the tower of Babel, when they built the tower and God scattered them. And the bright waters that followed are Abraham and his descendants, and the covenant made with him.

And the third black waters are the sins of Egypt, and the affliction of Israel there. And the bright waters are the deliverance from Egypt and the giving of the law.

And the fourth black waters are the sins of Israel in the wilderness. And the bright waters are the entrance into the land of promise.

And the fifth black waters are the sins of the kings of Israel and Judah, who forsook the law. And the bright waters are the righteous kings who arose among them.

And the sixth black waters are the time of Hezekiah, when Sennacherib came and destroyed many nations, but was himself destroyed. And the bright waters are the righteousness of Hezekiah.

And the seventh black waters are the days of Manasseh and his abominations. And the bright waters are the days of Josiah.

And the eighth black waters are the captivity and the desolation of Zion, which you have seen with your own eyes. And the bright waters that follow are the restoration that is to come.

And the ninth black waters are the corruption of the whole world. And the bright waters are the coming of the Anointed One.

And the tenth black waters are the sins that will be committed in the last days. And the bright waters are the final judgment and the world to come.

And the eleventh black waters are the last tribulation before the end. And the twelfth and blackest waters are the final desolation before the dawn.

And the last bright waters, which are brighter than all the rest, are the age to come, when the righteous will shine like the stars and the world will be renewed.

The Forest, the Vine, the Fountain, and the Cedar

And after this I saw a great forest on a plain, and around it high mountains and rocky cliffs. And the forest occupied much space. And behold, a vine came from beside a mountain, and it was peaceful and quiet. And from beneath it there came a fountain, running quietly. And the fountain came to the forest and became great waves, and those waves submerged the forest and suddenly uprooted most of the forest and overthrew the mountains. And the height of the mountains was brought low, and that fountain prevailed and the mountains were brought low.

And I saw until all the great forest was left with one cedar. And when the waves had thrown down everything, so that nothing was left of that great forest except one cedar, that cedar was also cast down and destroyed.

And the vine came with the fountain in peace and great tranquility, and it came to a place where the cedar had been, and the place where the cedar had stood became full of undying flowers.

And I awoke and arose.

The Interpretation of the Vision

And the angel said to me: This vision which you have seen, hear its interpretation. The forest which you saw, that is the fourth kingdom which appeared in a vision to your brother Daniel. The cedar which was left in the forest is the last ruler of that kingdom, who will be destroyed. And the vine and the fountain are the Anointed One and the restoration of the seed of David. And the flowers that filled the place are the age of the Anointed One, which will be without end.

The Last Days and the Anointed One

And it will come to pass when the time of the Anointed One has been fulfilled, that he will return in glory. And then all who have fallen asleep in hope of him will rise again. And the earth will give back those who sleep in it, and the dust will give back those who rest in it in silence, and the storehouses will give back the souls that were committed to them.

And the Anointed One will begin to be revealed, and Behemoth will be revealed from his place, and Leviathan will come up from the sea, and those two great monsters which I created on the fifth day of creation and which I have kept until that time will be food for all who remain.

And the earth will also yield its fruit ten thousandfold, and on each vine there will be a thousand branches, and each branch will produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster will produce a thousand grapes, and each grape will produce a measure of wine. And those who have been hungry will rejoice, and they will also see marvels every day.

Baruch's Prayer

And I answered and said: O Lord, you have given me understanding of many things, and you have shown me many wonders. But now I ask you one thing: will there be a resurrection for all, or will only some be raised? And he answered and said to me: Whatever has not loved your law cannot be raised to life, but whatever has loved your law will be raised.

The Righteous and the Wicked at the Resurrection

And I said: But, Lord, if the dead are raised in the same form in which they died, then the wicked will be raised in their wickedness and the righteous in their righteousness. And he said to me: Hear, Baruch. When the earth gives back the dead, it will give them back exactly as it received them, so that those who knew each other may recognize each other. But afterward the appearance of those who are condemned will be changed, and the glory of those who are justified will be greater. For the wicked will waste away even more, and the righteous will shine even more, for the judgment must be seen by all.

Baruch's Final Lament and God's Answer

And I answered and said: O Lord, who can understand your judgment, or who can explore the depth of your way? Or who can think out the weight of your path? Or who can say: I have understood the incomprehensible? Or who has ever found the beginning or the end of your wisdom? For we are all born like the grass, and our life is like a flower of the field. We wither and the wind carries us away, and our place knows us no more.

But you, O Lord, you endure forever, and your throne from generation to generation. Your judgment is true and your ways are right. For you have shown me all these things so that I might comfort those who are in distress, and strengthen those who are weak, and encourage those who are afraid.

The Epistle of Baruch to the Nine and a Half Tribes

This is the letter which Baruch the son of Neriah sent to the nine and a half tribes which were across the river Euphrates, in which these things were written.

Thus says Baruch the son of Neriah to the brothers carried into captivity: Mercy and peace be with you.

I remember, my brothers, the love of him who created us, who loved us from of old and who never hated us, but above all educated us. And truly I know that behold all we who are in this land are the children of one father, and that we are the children of one mother. Therefore I have been the more careful to leave you the words of this letter before I die, so that you may be comforted regarding the evils which have come upon you, and so that you may be grieved also regarding the evil that has befallen your brothers, and then so that you may consider the judgment of him who decreed it against us.

For the Most High first created the whole world for the sake of his people, and he did not plan the beginning of the world before he planned what would happen to his people. But then he repented because of his own works. And then he took from among his works those who were to be born, and he prepared beforehand the world which was not yet made, so that those who were to be born might live in it, and so that the hope of those who would not perish might not be disappointed.

Now I know that we have sinned, both we and our fathers, in departing from the law of the Mighty One. And you know it also. But behold, the days are coming when the times of the ages will be fulfilled, and the end of all things will come. And then the Mighty One will renew his creation, and the dead will rise, and the righteous will be gathered, and the wicked will be condemned.