By this time the two men had reached the gray, barren hillside from which the Jordan valley and the Dead Sea can be seen in the distance. It was here where Jeremiah received his call and commission to be a prophet to his people. With deep emotion did he now bewail his lot:
"Ah! I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter and I
knew it not."
The injustice and the unrighteousness of it all came to him more forcibly at this place of sacred memories, and he cried:
"Oh, Lord God of Hosts, who judgest righteously, who triest the heart and the mind, I shall see thy vengeance on them; for unto thee have I revealed my cause."
In the bitterness of his spirit he could no longer restrain his woe. Outcast and disgraced, persecuted in Jerusalem and his life sought for by his own family, Jeremiah cursed the very day of his birth:
"Cursed be the day in which I was born.
Let not the day wherein my mother bore me be blessed.
Cursed be the man who brought joyful tidings to my father, saying,
'A man child is born to thee,' making him very glad.
Let that man be as the cities which the Lord pitilessly overthrew,
Because he did not let me die.
Why was I born to see labor and sorrow,
That my days should be consumed with shame?"
Baruch did not break in upon the grief and anguish of Jeremiah. He turned away, sat down quietly at the foot of a tree and listened, with a fast-beating beating heart, to the sobs that were racking the very frame of his beloved teacher.
For a long time the two sat there, each engrossed in his own thoughts. The tree-clad hills of Gilead, to the northeast of them, were now bathed in the deep shadows cast by the rapidly setting sun. Baruch walked over to Jeremiah and laid a light hand upon his shoulder. Jeremiah felt his presence but did not raise his head.
"Master!" Baruch called softly.
Jeremiah looked up into a tear-stained face in which he read sympathy, love and sincere devotion. He arose slowly. The lines of a faint smile of appreciation played about his mouth. He grasped the young man in his embrace and clung to him as if he were his only remaining hope.