Bible Gateway passage: Jeremiah 36 - Common English Bible (2024)

Enduring word of God

36In the fourth year of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²Take a scroll and write in it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations from the time of Josiah until today. ³Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I intend to bring upon them, they will turn from their evil ways, and I will forgive their wrongdoing and sins. ⁴So Jeremiah sent for Baruch, Neriah’s son. As Jeremiah dictated all the words that the Lord had spoken to him, Baruch wrote them in the scroll. ⁵Then Jeremiah told Baruch, “I’m confined here and can’t go to the Lord’s temple. ⁶So you go to the temple on the next day of fasting, and read the Lord’s words from the scroll that I have dictated to you. Read them so that all the people in the temple can hear them, as well as all the Judeans who have come from their towns. ⁷If they turn from their evil ways, perhaps the Lord will hear their prayers. The Lord has threatened them with fierce anger.” ⁸Baruch, Neriah’s son, did everything the prophet Jeremiah instructed him: he read all the Lord’s words from the scroll in the temple.

⁹In the ninth month of the fifth year of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son, all the people in Jerusalem and all those who had come from Judean towns observed a fast for the Lord in Jerusalem. ¹⁰Then Baruch read Jeremiah’s words from the scroll to all the people in the Lord’s temple; he read them in the chamber of Gemariah, Shaphan the scribe’s son, in the upper courtyard near the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s temple. ¹¹When Micaiah, Gemariah’s son and Shaphan’s grandson, heard all the Lord’s words from the scroll, ¹²he went down to the scribes’ chamber in the royal palace. There he found all the officials meeting together: Elishama the scribe; Delaiah, Shemaiah’s son; Elnathan, Achbor’s son; Gemariah, Shaphan’s son; Zedekiah, Hananiah’s son, and all the other officials. ¹³Micaiah told them all the words he heard Baruch read from the scroll before the people.

¹⁴Then all the officials sent Jehudi, Nethaniah’s son and Shelemiah’s grandson, and Cushi’s great-grandson, to Baruch: “Take the scroll you read to the people and come with me.”

So Baruch, Neriah’s son, took the scroll and went to the officials. ¹⁵They said to him, “Sit down and read it to us.” So Baruch read it to them. ¹⁶When they heard all its words, they were alarmed and said to Baruch: “We must at once report all this to the king!” ¹⁷Then they asked Baruch, “Tell us, how did you write all these words? Did they come from Jeremiah?”

¹⁸Baruch replied, “He dictated all the words to me, and I wrote them with ink in the scroll.”

¹⁹The officials then said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah had better go and hide. And don’t let anyone know where you are.”

²⁰After leaving the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe, they went to the king’s court and told him everything. ²¹The king sent Jehudi to take the scroll, and he retrieved it from the room of Elishama the scribe. Then Jehudi read it to the king and all his royal officials who were standing next to the king. ²²Now it was the ninth month,^[a] and the king was staying in the winterized part of the palace with the firepot burning near him. ²³And whenever Jehudi read three or four columns of the scroll, the king would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the firepot until the whole scroll was burned up. ²⁴Neither the king nor any of his attendants who heard all these words were alarmed or tore their clothes. ²⁵Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, but he wouldn’t listen to them.

²⁶The king commanded Jerahmeel, the king’s son, along with Seraiah, Azriel’s son, and Shelemiah, Abdeel’s son, to arrest the scribe Baruch and the prophet Jeremiah. But the Lord hid them.

²⁷The Lord’s word came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll containing the words written by Baruch at Jeremiah’s dictation: ²⁸Get another scroll and write in it all the words that were in the first scroll that Judah’s King Jehoiakim burned. ²⁹Then say to Judah’s King Jehoiakim: The Lord proclaims: You burned that scroll because it declared that the king of Babylon will come and destroy this land and eliminate every sign of life from it. ³⁰Therefore, this is what the Lord proclaims about Judah’s King Jehoiakim: He won’t have any heirs to occupy the throne of David, and his dead body will be cast out and exposed to the heat of the day and the frost of the night. ³¹I will punish him and his family and his attendants for their wrongdoing. I will bring upon them, as well as the residents of Jerusalem and the people of Judah, every disaster I pronounced against them. But they wouldn’t listen.

³²So Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch, Neriah’s son, who wrote at Jeremiah’s dictation all the words in the scroll burned in the fire by Judah’s King Jehoiakim. Many similar words were added to them.