The Hebrew Prophets

Mikhay'hu told them all the words he had heard when Barukh read the scroll in the people's hearing;

whereupon all the officials sent Y'hudi the son of N'tanyahu, the son of Shelemyahu, the son of Kushi, to Barukh to say, "Take in your hand the scroll from which you read in the hearing of the people, and come." So Barukh the son of Neriyah took the scroll in his hand and went to them.

They said to him, "Sit down, please, and read it to us." Barukh read it to them.

After they had heard all the words, they turned in fear to each other and said to Barukh, "We will certainly tell the king about all these words."

Then they asked Barukh, "Tell us now, how did you write all these words? At his dictation?"

Barukh answered them, "He said all these words to me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the scroll."

At this, the officials said to Barukh, "Go and hide yourselves, you and Yirmeyahu; don't let anyone know where you are."

After depositing the scroll in the room of Elishama the secretary, they went in to the courtyard and told everything to the king.

The king sent Y'hudi to bring the scroll, and he took it from the room of Elishama the secretary. Y'hudi read it to the king and all the officials standing near the king.

The king was sitting in his winter house; and since it was the ninth month, he had a fire burning in the stove in front of him.

After Y'hudi had read three or four columns from the scroll, he would cut off that portion with a knife and throw it into the fire that was burning in the stove, until the entire scroll had been consumed by the fire in the stove.

But even though they heard all these words, neither the king nor any of his servants grew afraid or tore their clothes.

Elnatan, D'layahu and G'maryahu had begged the king not to burn the scroll; but he wouldn't listen to them.

Then the king ordered Yerachme'el the king's son, S'rayahu the son of 'Azri'el and Shelemyahu the son of 'Avde'el to arrest Barukh the scribe and Yirmeyahu the prophet; but ADONAI hid them.

Then this word of ADONAI came to Yirmeyahu after the king had burned the scroll with the words Barukh had written at Yirmeyahu's dictation:

"Take another scroll, and write on it all the words that were on the first scroll, which Y'hoyakim the king of Y'hudah burned up.

And as far as Y'hoyakim king of Y'hudah is concerned, you are to say that ADONAI says, 'You burned this scroll, asking, "Why did you write in it that the king of Bavel will certainly come and destroy this land and leave it without either humans or animals?"

Therefore ADONAI says this about Y'hoyakim king of Y'hudah: "He will have no one to occupy David's throne; and his dead body will be thrown out to lie in the heat by day and in the frost by night.

Moreover, I will punish him, his offspring and his officials for their wickedness; and I will bring on them, the inhabitants of Yerushalayim and the people of Y'hudah all the disaster I have decreed against them, to which they have paid no attention."'"

Then Yirmeyahu took another scroll and gave it to Barukh the scribe, the son of Neriyah. At Yirmeyahu's dictation he wrote in it all the words of the scroll which Y'hoyakim king of Y'hudah had burned up in the fire, and to those he added many similar words.

Tzidkiyahu the son of Yoshiyahu became king, succeeding Koniyahu the son of Y'hoyakim, whom N'vukhadretzar king of Bavel had made king over the land of Y'hudah.

But neither he, his servants nor the people of the land paid attention to the words of ADONAI, which he spoke through the prophet Yirmeyahu.

Tzidkiyahu the king sent Y'hukhal the son of Shelemyahu and Tz'fanyahu the son of Ma'aseiyah, the cohen, to the prophet Yirmeyahu with the message, "Please pray to ADONAI our God for us."

At that time Yirmeyahu was mixing freely with the people, because they had not yet put him in prison.

At the same time Pharaoh's army marched out of Egypt; and when the Kasdim besieging Yerushalayim heard about them, they lifted the siege from Yerushalayim.