The Bible (Old and New Testaments)

Mem. Who is he that hath commanded a thing to be done, when the Lord commandeth it not?

Mem. Shall not both evil and good proceed out of the mouth of the Highest?

Mem. Why hath a living man murmured, man suffering for his sins?

Nun. Let us search our ways, and seek, and return to the Lord.

Nun. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens.

Nun. We have done wickedly, and provoked thee to wrath: therefore thou art inexorable.

Samech. Thou hast covered in thy wrath, and hast struck us: thou hast killed and hast not spared.

Samech. Thou hast set a cloud before thee, that our prayer may not pass through.

Samech. Thou hast made me as an outcast, and refuse in the midst of the people.

Phe. All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

Phe. Prophecy is become to us a fear, and a snare, and destruction.

Phe. My eye hath run down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Ain. My eye is afflicted, and hath not been quiet, because there was no rest:

Ain. Till the Lord regarded and looked down from the heavens.

Ain. My eye hath wasted my soul because of all the daughters of my city.

Sade. My enemies have chased me and caught me like a bird, without cause.

Sade. My life is fallen into the pit, and they have laid a stone over me.

Sade. Waters have flowed over my head: I said: I am cut off.

Coph. I have called upon thy name, O Lord, from the lowest pit.

Coph. Thou hast heard my voice: turn not away thy ear from my sighs, and cries.

Coph. Thou drewest near in the day, when I called upon thee, thou saidst: Fear not.

Res. Thou hast judged, O Lord, the cause of my soul, thou the Redeemer of my life.

Res. Thou hast seen, O Lord, their iniquity against me: judge thou my judgment.

Res. Thou hast seen all their fury, and all their thoughts against me.

Sin. Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, all their imaginations against me.

Sin. The lips of them that rise up against me: and their devices against me all the day.

Sin. Behold their sitting down, and their rising up, I am their song.

Thau. Thou shalt render them a recompense, O Lord, according to the works of their hands.

Thau. Thou shalt give them a buckler of heart, thy labour.

Thau. Thou shalt persecute them in anger, and shalt destroy them from under the heavens, O Lord.

Aleph. How is the gold become dim, the finest colour is changed, the stones of the sanctuary are scattered in the top of every street?

Beth. The noble sons of Sion, and they that were clothed with the best gold: how are they esteemed as earthen vessels, the work of the potter's hands?

Ghimel. Even the sea monsters have drawn out the breast, they have given suck to their young: the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostrich in the desert.

Daleth. The tongue of the sucking child hath stuck to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the little ones have asked for bread, and there was none to break it unto them.

He. They that were fed delicately have died in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet have embraced the dung.

Vau. And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is made greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and hands took nothing in her.

Zain. Her Nazarites were whiter than snow, purer than milk, more ruddy than the old ivory, fairer than the sapphire.

Heth. Their face is now made blacker than coals, and they are not known in the streets: their skin hath stuck to their bones, it is withered, and is become like wood.

Teth. It was better with them that were slain by the sword, than with them that died with hunger: for these pined away being consumed for want of the fruits of the earth.

Jod. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Caph. The Lord hath accomplished his wrath, he hath poured out his fierce anger: and he hath kindled a fire in Sion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.

Lamed. The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed, that the adversary and the enemy should enter in by the gates of Jerusalem.

Mem. For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.

Nun. They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they were defiled with blood: and when they could not help walking in it, they held up their skirts.

Samech. Depart you that are defiled, they cried out to them: Depart, get ye hence, touch not: for they quarrelled, and being removed, they said among the Gentiles: He will no more dwell among them.

Phe. The face of the Lord hath divided them, he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, neither had they pity on the ancient.

Ain. While we were yet standing, our eyes failed, expecting help for us in vain, when we looked attentively towards a nation that was not able to save.

Sade. Our steps have slipped in the way of our streets, our end draweth near: our days are fulfilled, for our end is come.

Coph. Our persecutors were swifter than the eagles of the air: they pursued us upon the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.

Res. The breath of our mouth, Christ the Lord, is taken in our sins: to whom we said: Under thy shadow we shall live among the Gentiles.

Sin. Rejoice, and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Hus: to thee also shall the cup come, thou shalt be made drunk, and naked.

Thau. Thy iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Sion, he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he hath visited thy iniquity, O daughter of Edom, he hath discovered thy sins.

Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider and behold our reproach.

Our inheritance is turned to aliens: our houses to strangers.

We are become orphans without a father: our mothers are as widows.

We have drunk our water for money: we have bought our wood.

We were dragged by the necks, we were weary and no rest was given us.

We have given our hand to Egypt, and to the Assyrians, that we might be satisfied with bread.

Our fathers have sinned, and are not: and we have borne their iniquities.

Servants have ruled over us: there was none to redeem us out of their hand.

We fetched our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the desert.

Our skin was burnt as an oven, by reason of the violence of the famine.

They oppressed the women in Sion, and the virgins in the cities of Juda.

The princes were hanged up by their hand: they did not respect the persons of the ancients.

They abused the young men indecently: and the children fell under the wood.

The ancients have ceased from the gates: the young men from the choir of the singers.

The joy of our heart is ceased, our dancing is turned into mourning.

The crown is fallen from our head: woe to us, because we have sinned.

Therefore is our heart sorrowful, therefore are our eyes become dim.

For mount Sion, because it is destroyed, foxes have walked upon it.

But thou, O Lord, shalt remain for ever, thy throne from generation to generation.

Why wilt thou forget us for ever? why wilt thou forsake us for a long time?

Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted: renew our days, as from the beginning.

But thou hast utterly rejected us, thou art exceedingly angry with us.

And these are the words of the book, which Baruch the son of Nerias, the son of Maasias, the son of Sedecias, the son of Sedei, the son Helcias, wrote in Babylonia.

In the fifth year, in the seventh day of the month, at the time that the Chaldeans took Jerusalem, and burnt it with fire.

And Baruch read the words of this book in the hearing of Jechonias the son of Joakim king of Juda, and in the hearing of all the people that came to hear the book.

And in the hearing of the nobles, the sons of the kings, and in the hearing of the ancients, and in the hearing of the people, from the least even to the greatest of them that dwelt in Babylonia, by the river Sedi.

And when they heard it they wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord.

And they made a collection of money according to every man's power.

And they sent it to Jerusalem to Joakim the priest, the son of Helcias, the son of Salom, and to the priests, and to all the people, that were found with him in Jerusalem:

At the time when he received the vessels of the temple of the Lord, which had been taken away out of the temple, to return them into the land of Juda the tenth day of the month Sivan, the silver vessels, which Sedecias the son of Josias king of Juda had made,

After that Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon had carried away Jechonias, and the princes, and all the powerful men, and the people of the land from Jerusalem, and brought them bound to Babylon.

And they said: Behold we have sent you money, buy with it holocausts, and frankincense, and make meat offerings, and offerings for sin at the altar of the Lord our God:

And pray ye for the life of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and for the life of Balthasar his son, that their days may be upon earth as the days of heaven:

And that the Lord may give us strength, and enlighten our eyes, that we may live under the shadow of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and under the shadow of Balthasar his son, and may serve them many days, and may find favour in their sight.

And pray ye for us to the Lord our God: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, and his wrath is not turned away from us even to this day.

And read ye this book, which we have sent to you to be read in the temple of the Lord, on feasts, and proper days.

And you shall say: To the Lord our God belongeth justice, but to us confusion of our face: as it is come to pass at this day to all Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,

To our kings, and to our princes, and to our priests, and to our prophets, and to our fathers.

We have sinned before the Lord our God, and have not believed him, nor put our trust in him:

And we were not obedient to him, and we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his commandments which he hath given us.

From the day that he brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, we were disobedient to the Lord our God: and going astray we turned away from hearing his voice.

And many evils have cleaved to us, and the curses which the Lord foretold by Moses his servant: who brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, to give us a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day.

And we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God according to all the words of the prophets whom he sent to us:

And we have gone away every man after the inclinations of his own wicked heart, to serve strange gods, and to do evil in the sight of the Lord our God.

Wherefore the Lord our God hath made good his word, that he spoke to us, and to our judges that have judged Israel, and to our kings, and to our princes, and to all Israel and Juda:

That the Lord would bring upon us great evils, such as never happened under heaven, as they have come to pass in Jerusalem, according to the things that are written in the law of Moses:

That a man should eat the flesh of his own son, and the flesh of his own daughter.

And he hath delivered them up to be under the hand of all the kings that are round about us, to be a reproach, and desolation among all the people, among whom the Lord hath scattered us.