The Book of the Prophet Baruch

— does not exist in Hebrew, but was translated from the Greek, and contains five chapters. This book is joined with the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, as an appendix to it, and is reckoned by the Church Fathers as one book with it. It was written for the purpose of showing the Jews that all their calamities, such as the Babylonian captivity and the burning of Jerusalem, were sent upon them for the sins of their fathers and of themselves, in order to move them to repentance and to comfort them with the promise of temporal and eternal freedom.

The text of this book, full of Hebraisms, serves as clear proof that the book was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions, where it is said that the Jews read it on the Day of Atonement, lamenting the desolation of the land of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar. If it is not mentioned by many of the Church Fathers, this is undoubtedly because it was usually counted as one with the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah. The book of the prophet contains a remarkable prophecy of the new glory of the spiritual Jerusalem, whose children shall be gathered from the west of the sun to the east by the word of the Holy One (Baruch 5:5).