Baruch 4:27-29. Baruch tells the people to take courage and cry to God "for you will be remembered by him who brought this upon you." Just as they purposed to go astray from God, they should now return to him with tenfold zeal. "For he who brought these calamities upon you will bring you everlasting joy with your salvation."

This is another example of how our punishments and sufferings are often permitted by God in order to cause us to come back to him. It frequently is the only way we will turn back! We can go so far down the road of sin that we become blind to it, it just seems natural or the way it is supposed to be, everybody is doing it. Then, when the consequences of our sin begin to make themselves known, it feels like unprovoked calamities are befalling us, like God is bringing them upon us (and in a way, he is, in that he is allowing us to feel the consequences of our bad behavior.")

God "brings" calamities upon us in order to bring us back to him, individually, or as a family, as a community, or even, right now, as an entire world! These calamities that are befalling us now are largely of our own making, but they are also being permitted by God so that a world that has gone very far astray and in which great evil is thriving will wake up and begin pursuing our eternal salvation.