1IN the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
2Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you about Jerusalem, Judah, and all the nations, from the day that I first spoke to you during the reign of Josiah down to the present day.
3Perhaps the house of Judah will be warned of all the disaster I am planning to inflict on them, and everyone will abandon his evil conduct; then I shall forgive their wrongdoing and their sin.
4Jeremiah summoned Baruch son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on the scroll at Jeremiah's dictation everything the LORD had said to him.
5He gave Baruch this instruction: “As I am debarred from going to the LORD's house,
6you must go there and on a fast-day read aloud to the people the words of the LORD from the scroll you wrote at my dictation. You are to read them in the hearing of all those who come in from the towns of Judah.
7Then perhaps they will petition the LORD, and everyone will abandon his evil conduct; for in great anger and wrath the LORD has threatened this people.”
8Baruch son of Neriah did all that the prophet Jeremiah had told him, about reading from the scroll the words of the LORD in the LORD's house.
9In the ninth month of the fifth year of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, all the people in Jerusalem and all who came there from the towns of Judah proclaimed a fast before the LORD.
10Then in the LORD's house Baruch read aloud Jeremiah's words from the scroll to all the people; he read them from the room of Gemariah son of the adjutant-general Shaphan, which was in the upper court at the entrance to the New Gate of the LORD's house.
11When Micaiah son of Gemariah, son of Shaphan, heard all the LORD's words from the scroll
12he went down to the palace, to the chief adviser's room, where he found the officers all in session: Elishama the chief adviser, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Akbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officers.
13Micaiah reported to them everything he had heard Baruch read from the scroll in the hearing of the people.
14Then the officers sent Jehudi son of Nethaniah, son of Shelemiah, son of Cushi, to Baruch with this order: “Come here and bring the scroll from which you read to the people.” When Baruch son of Neriah appeared before them with the scroll,
15they said to him, “Sit down and read it to us,” and he did so.
16When they had listened to it, they turned to each other in alarm and said, “We must certainly report this to the king.”
17They asked Baruch to explain to them how he had come to write all this.
18He answered, “Jeremiah dictated every word of it to me, and I wrote it down with ink on the scroll.”
19The officers said to him, “You and Jeremiah must go into hiding so that no one may know where you are.”
20When they had deposited the scroll in the room of Elishama the chief adviser, they went to the court and reported the whole affair to the king.
21The king sent Jehudi for the scroll and, when he had fetched it from the room of Elishama the chief adviser, Jehudi read it out to the king and to all the officers in attendance on him.
22Since it was the ninth month of the year, the king was sitting in his winter apartments with a fire burning in a brazier in front of him.
23Every time Jehudi read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a penknife and threw them into the fire in the brazier. He went on doing so until the entire scroll had been destroyed on the fire.
24Neither the king nor any of his courtiers showed any alarm or tore their clothes as they listened to these words;
25and though Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, he refused to listen,
26but ordered Jerahmeel, a royal prince, Seraiah son of Azriel, and Shelemiah son of Abdeel to arrest Baruch the scribe and the prophet Jeremiah. But the LORD had hidden them.
27After the king had burnt the scroll with all that Baruch had written on it at Jeremiah's dictation, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:
28Take another scroll and write on it everything that was on the first scroll which King Jehoiakim of Judah burnt.
29You are to say to the king: These are the words of the LORD: You burnt that scroll and said, “Why have you written here that the king of Babylon will come and destroy this land and exterminate both man and beast?”
30Therefore these are the words of the LORD about King Jehoiakim of Judah: He will have no descendant to succeed him on the throne of David, and his dead body will be exposed to scorching heat by day and frost by night.
31I shall punish him, his offspring, and his courtiers for their wickedness, and I shall bring down on them and on the citizens of Jerusalem and on the people of Judah all the disasters with which I threatened them, for they turned a deaf ear to me.
32Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah, who wrote on it at Jeremiah's dictation all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burnt in the fire; and much else was added to the same effect.