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Baruch 4: 5-12, 27-29

Encouragement for Israel

⁵ Take courage, my people,
   who perpetuate Israel’s name!
⁶ It was not for destruction
   that you were sold to the nations,
but you were handed over to your enemies
   because you angered God.
⁷ For you provoked the one who made you
   by sacrificing to demons and not to God.
⁸ You forgot the everlasting God, who brought you up,
   and you grieved Jerusalem, who reared you.
⁹ For she saw the wrath that came upon you from God,
   and she said:
Listen, you neighbours of Zion,
   God has brought great sorrow upon me;
¹⁰ for I have seen the exile of my sons and daughters,
   which the Everlasting brought upon them.
¹¹ With joy I nurtured them,
   but I sent them away with weeping and sorrow.
¹² Let no one rejoice over me, a widow
   and bereaved of many;
I was left desolate because of the sins of my children,
   because they turned away from the law of God.
²⁷ Take courage, my children, and cry to God,
   for you will be remembered by the one who brought this upon you.
²⁸ For just as you were disposed to go astray from God,
   return with tenfold zeal to seek him.
²⁹ For the one who brought these calamities upon you
   will bring you everlasting joy with your salvation.

Joshua 22: 1-6

The Eastern Tribes Return to Their Territory

22Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, ²and said to them, ‘You have observed all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, and have obeyed me in all that I have commanded you; ³you have not forsaken your kindred these many days, down to this day, but have been careful to keep the charge of the Lord your God. ⁴And now the Lord your God has given rest to your kindred, as he promised them; therefore turn and go to your tents in the land where your possession lies, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the other side of the Jordan. ⁵Take good care to observe the commandment and instruction that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.’ ⁶So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their tents.