Five years after fire took Jerusalem, the exiles gather by the river Sud in Babylon to hear Baruch read. Attributed to Jeremiah's scribe, the book is received as Scripture by Catholics and the Orthodox and set apart from the canon by the Reformers, valued and read across the whole tradition. The captives weep and fast, then gather what silver they can and send it home to the priests: money for burnt offerings and incense, and the temple vessels carried off in the conquest, to be restored to the altar. With the gift travels a request that startles: pray for the life of Nebuchadnezzar and his son, that Judah may live quietly under his shadow, and pray for the exiles themselves, whose sin still stands between them and God. The reading turns then to confession, the words appointed for the feast days: to the Lord belongs righteousness, and to us the shame of a face that cannot be lifted, for we and our kings and our fathers disobeyed His voice from Egypt until now.