“Get a scroll. Write on it all the words I have spoken to you about Israel and Judah and all the nations. Write everything from when I first spoke to you, when Josiah was king, until now.
(“How I wish a court would hear my case! Here I sign my name to show I have told the truth. Now let the Almighty answer me; let the one who accuses me write it down.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write about this battle in a book so people will remember. And be sure to tell Joshua, because I will completely destroy the Amalekites from the earth.”
“Before I made you in your mother’s womb, I chose you. Before you were born, I set you apart for a special work. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
The Lord has spoken his word to me again and again for these past twenty-three years. I have been a prophet since the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah. I have spoken messages from the Lord to you from that time until today, but you have not listened.
Then the officers sent a man named Jehudi son of Nethaniah to Baruch. (Nethaniah was the son of Shelemiah, who was the son of Cushi.) Jehudi said to Baruch, “Bring the scroll that you read to the people and come with me.” So Baruch son of Neriah took the scroll and went with Jehudi to the officers.
After Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut those columns off of the scroll with a penknife and threw them into the firepot. Finally, the whole scroll was burned in the fire.
Also say this to Jehoiakim king of Judah: ‘This is what the Lord says: You burned up that scroll and said, “Why, Jeremiah, did you write on it ‘the king of Babylon will surely come and destroy this land and the people and animals in it’?”
So I want you to go to the Temple of the Lord on a day when the people are fasting. Read from the scroll to all the people of Judah who come into Jerusalem from their towns. Read the messages from the Lord, which are the words you wrote on the scroll as I spoke them to you.
It was the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah. Jeremiah the prophet told these things to Baruch son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote them on a scroll: