The prophet exhorts to the keeping of the law of wisdom, and encourages
the people to be patient, and to hope for their deliverance.
4:1. This is the book of the commandments of God, and the law, that is
for ever: all they that keep it, shall come to life: but they that have
forsaken it, to death.
4:2. Return, O Jacob, and take hold of it, walk in the way by its
brightness, in the presence of the light thereof.
4:3. Give not thy honour to another, nor thy dignity to a strange
nation.
4:4. We are happy, O Israel: because the things that are pleasing to
God, are made known to us.
4:5. Be of good comfort, O people of God, the memorial of Israel:
4:6. You have been sold to the Gentiles, not for your destruction: but
because you provoked God to wrath, you are delivered to your
adversaries.
4:7. For you have provoked him who made you, the eternal God, offering
sacrifice to devils, and not to God.
4:8. For you have forgotten God, who brought you up, and you have
grieved Jerusalem that nursed you.
4:9. For she saw the wrath of God coming upon you, and she said: Give
ear, all you that dwell near Sion, for God hath brought upon me great
mourning:
4:10. For I have seen the captivity of my people, of my sons, and my
daughters, which the Eternal hath brought upon them.
4:11. For I nourished them with joy: but I sent them away with weeping
and mourning.
4:12. Let no man rejoice over me, a widow, and desolate: I am forsaken
of many for the sins of my children, because they departed from the law
of God.
4:13. And they have not known his justices, nor walked by the ways of
God's commandments, neither have they entered by the paths of his truth
and justice.
4:14. Let them that dwell about Sion come, and remember the captivity
of my sons and daughters, which the Eternal hath brought upon them.
4:15. For he hath brought a nation upon them from afar, a wicked
nation, and of a strange tongue:
4:16. Who have neither reverenced the ancient, nor pitied children, and
have carried away the beloved of the widow, and have left me all alone
without children.
4:17. But as for me, what help can I give you?
4:18. But he that hath brought the evils upon you, he will deliver you
out of the hands of your enemies.
4:19. Go your way, my children, go your way: for I am left alone.
4:20. I have put off the robe of peace, and have put upon me the
sackcloth of supplication, and I will cry to the most High in my days.
4:21. Be of good comfort, my children, cry to the Lord, and he will
deliver you out of the hand of the princes your enemies.
4:22. For my hope is in the Eternal that he will save you: and joy is
come upon me from the Holy One, because of the mercy which shall come
to you from our everlasting Saviour.
4:23. For I sent you forth with mourning and weeping: but the Lord will
bring you back to me with joy and gladness for ever.
4:24. For as the neighbours of Sion have now seen your captivity from
God: so shall they also shortly see your salvation from God, which
shall come upon you with great honour, and everlasting glory.
4:25. My children, suffer patiently the wrath that is come upon you:
for thy enemy hath persecuted thee, but thou shalt quickly see his
destruction: and thou shalt get up upon his neck.
4:26. My delicate ones have walked rough ways, for they were taken away
as a flock made a prey by the enemies.
4:27. Be of good comfort, my children, and cry to the Lord: for you
shall be remembered by him that hath led you away.
4:28. For as it was your mind to go astray from God; so when you return
again you shall seek him ten times as much.
4:29. For he that hath brought evils upon you, shall bring you
everlasting joy again with your salvation.
4:30. Be of good heart, O Jerusalem: for he exhorteth thee, that named
thee.
4:31. The wicked that have afflicted thee, shall perish: and they that
have rejoiced at thy ruin, shall be punished.
4:32. The cities which thy children have served, shall be punished: and
she that received thy sons.
She that received, etc. . .viz., Babylon.
4:33. For as she rejoiced at thy ruin, and was glad of thy fall: so
shall she be grieved for her own desolation.
4:34. And the joy of her multitude shall be cut off: and her gladness
shall be turned to mourning.
4:35. For fire shall come upon her from the Eternal, long to endure,
and she shall be inhabited by devils for a great time.
4:36. Look about thee, O Jerusalem, towards the east, and behold the
joy that cometh to thee from God.
4:37. For behold thy children come, whom thou sentest away scattered,
they come gathered together from the east even to the west, at the word
of the Holy One rejoicing for the honour of God.