{"collection":"Hypertext Bible","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_bib_web_bar_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_bib_web_bar_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_bib_web_bar_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bib/web/bar.htm","summary":"This is the opening of the Book of Baruch, a deuterocanonical (apocryphal) Jewish religious text attributed to Baruch, the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, written in the tradition of Babylonian exile literature. The text opens with a narrative frame: Baruch reads his scroll to the Jewish exiles in Babylon, prompting communal weeping, fasting, and a collection sent to Jerusalem to fund temple offerings and prayers \u2014 notably including prayers for the welfare of their Babylonian captors. The bulk of these chapters is an extended penitential prayer in which the exiled community confesses that Israel's destruction and dispersal are just punishment for generations of covenant-breaking, idol worship, and refusal to heed the prophets. A distinctive theological claim runs throughout: Israel has no grounds to appeal to its own righteousness, only to God's mercy, with restoration promised on the basis of God's ancient oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob rather than any merit of the people. The text shifts in chapter 3 to a wisdom poem arguing that Israel's exile is ultimately traceable to its abandonment of divine Wisdom \u2014 which no earthly power, wealth, or military might has ever located \u2014 implying that return and flourishing depend on recovering her. Taken together, the work functions as a liturgical confession designed for public reading at temple feasts, blending historical lament, theological interpretation of national catastrophe, and hope for eschatological restoration.","tags":["English Bible Translations","Modern Bible Translations","New Testament"],"text":null,"title":"World English Bible: Baruch","tradition":"Hypertext Bible","translated_text":null,"word_count":3498}