Book of Baruch Baruch, written by Attributed to Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe; unknown Jewish authors

Baruch has come down in Greek, not in the Hebrew Bible, but it was part of the Greek Old Testament used by the early Church, usually next to Jeremiah. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches count it as Scripture; the Reformers placed it among the Apocrypha, which the King James Version printed in a separate section between the Testaments.

It is a separate short work presented as a letter from Jeremiah to the people about to be deported. In Greek manuscripts it often stands on its own after Lamentations; the Latin Vulgate attached it to Baruch as chapter 6, and both the King James Version and the Crampon Bible keep that arrangement. A small Greek fragment of it was found at Qumran.

Most scholars think not. The book places Baruch in Babylon, while Jeremiah says he went to Egypt, and it calls Balthasar the son of Nabuchodonosor. Its prayer borrows from Daniel 9 and its poems from Isaiah and the wisdom books, which suggests several later writers who wrote under the name of the faithful scribe.

Both editions count 213 verses, but not in the same places. In chapter 3 the Crampon Bible splits the verse about the stars in two, so the King James 3:35-37 becomes 3:36-38. In chapter 6 the Crampon joins the letter's title to its first verse, so the King James 6:73 becomes 6:72.