“Get a scroll and write on it every word that I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations from the first time I spoke to you when Josiah was king up to now.
“For the last twenty-three years, ever since the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon was king, I have been warning you and continually prophesying to you the words of Yahweh, but you have not listened.
See! Today I have imparted to you great authority over nations and governments, to uproot and demolish, to destroy and dismantle. And you will plant and build something new.”
As soon as Jehudi finished reading three or four columns from the scroll, the king would cut them off with a small knife and throw them into the fire until the entire scroll was burned up.
So during the next day of fasting in the temple, you must go and read aloud from the scroll so that the people will hear everything that Yahweh has said to me and that I have dictated to you. Make sure all the people of Judah who have come in from their towns hear you clearly.
In the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, Yahweh gave me a word for Baruch son of Neriah while I was dictating to Baruch the message that he wrote down in a scroll.
Yahweh told me to tell the king, “Yahweh says to you: You have burned the scroll, and you have demanded that Jeremiah tell you why he prophesied that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and exterminate its people and its animals.
“Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew you intimately. I had divine plans for you before I gave you life, and I set you apart and chose you to be mine. You are my prophetic gift to the nations.”
Then the officials sent Jehudi (the son of Nethaniah, grandson of Shelemiah and great-grandson of Cushi) to tell Baruch to bring them the scroll that he had read to the people. So Baruch went to them, carrying the scroll in his hand.