Bible Reading Plan – Day 208

₁In the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, the LORD said to me, ₂“Get a scroll and write on it everything that I have told you about Israel and Judah and all the nations. Write everything that I have told you from the time I first spoke to you, when Josiah was king, up to the present. ₃Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the destruction that I intend to bring on them, they will turn from their evil ways. Then I will forgive their wickedness and their sins.”

₄So I called Baruch son of Neriah and dictated to him everything that the LORD had said to me. And Baruch wrote it all down on a scroll. ₅Then I gave Baruch the following instructions: “I am no longer allowed to go into the Temple. ₆But I want you to go there the next time the people are fasting. You are to read the scroll aloud, so that they will hear everything that the LORD has said to me and that I have dictated to you. Do this where everyone can hear you, including the people of Judah who have come in from their towns. ₇Perhaps they will pray to the LORD and turn from their evil ways, because the LORD has threatened this people with his terrible anger and fury.” ₈So Baruch read the LORD's words in the Temple exactly as I had told him to do.

₉In the ninth month of the fifth year that Jehoiakim was king of Judah, the people fasted to gain the LORD's favour. The fast was kept by all who lived in Jerusalem and by all who came there from the towns of Judah. ₁₀Then, while all the people were listening, Baruch read from the scroll everything that I had said. He did this in the Temple, from the room of Gemariah son of Shaphan, the court secretary. His room was in the upper court near the entrance of the New Gate of the Temple.

₁₁Micaiah, the son of Gemariah and grandson of Shaphan, heard Baruch read from the scroll what the LORD had said. ₁₂Then he went to the royal palace, to the room of the court secretary, where all the officials were in session. Elishama, the court secretary, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officials were there. ₁₃Micaiah told them everything that he had heard Baruch read to the people. ₁₄Then the officials sent Jehudi (the son of Nethaniah, grandson of Shelemiah, and great-grandson of Cushi) to tell Baruch to bring the scroll that he had read to the people. Baruch brought them the scroll. ₁₅“Sit down,” they said, “and read the scroll to us.” So Baruch did. ₁₆After he had read it, they turned to one another in alarm, and said to Baruch, “We must report this to the king.” ₁₇Then they asked him, “Tell us, now, how did you come to write all this? Did Jeremiah dictate it to you?”

₁₈Baruch answered, “Jeremiah dictated every word of it to me, and I wrote it down in ink on this scroll.”

₁₉Then they said to him, “You and Jeremiah must go and hide. Don't let anyone know where you are.”

₂₀The officials put the scroll in the room of Elishama, the court secretary, and went to the king's court, where they reported everything to the king. ₂₁Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He took it from the room of Elishama and read it to the king and all the officials who were standing round him. ₂₂It was winter and the king was sitting in his winter palace in front of the fire. ₂₃As soon as Jehudi finished reading three or four columns, the king cut them off with a small knife and threw them into the fire. He kept doing this until the entire scroll was burnt up. ₂₄But neither the king nor any of his officials who heard all this was afraid or showed any sign of sorrow. ₂₅Although Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, he paid no attention to them. ₂₆Then he ordered Prince Jerahmeel, together with Seraiah son of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abdeel, to arrest me and my secretary Baruch. But the LORD had hidden us.

₂₇After King Jehoiakim had burnt the scroll that I had dictated to Baruch, the LORD told me ₂₈to take another scroll and write on it everything that had been on the first one. ₂₉The LORD told me to say to the king, “You have burnt the scroll, and you have asked Jeremiah why he wrote that the king of Babylonia would come and destroy this land and kill its people and its animals. ₃₀So now, I, the LORD, say to you, King Jehoiakim, that no descendant of yours will ever rule over David's kingdom. Your corpse will be thrown out where it will be exposed to the sun during the day and to the frost at night. ₃₁I will punish you, your descendants, and your officials because of the sins all of you commit. Neither you nor the people of Jerusalem and of Judah have paid any attention to my warnings, and so I will bring on all of you the disaster that I have threatened.”

₃₂Then I took another scroll and gave it to my secretary Baruch, and he wrote down everything that I dictated. He wrote everything that had been on the first scroll and similar messages that I dictated to him.

₁King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia made Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah in the place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim. ₂But neither Zedekiah nor his officials nor the people obeyed the message which the LORD had given me.

₃King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to ask me to pray to the LORD our God on behalf of our nation. ₄I had not yet been put in prison and was still moving about freely among the people. ₅The Babylonian army had been besieging Jerusalem, but when they heard that the Egyptian army had crossed the Egyptian border, they retreated.

₆Then the LORD, the God of Israel, told me ₇to say to Zedekiah, “The Egyptian army is on its way to help you, but it will return home. ₈Then the Babylonians will come back, attack the city, capture it, and burn it down. ₉I, the LORD, warn you not to deceive yourselves into thinking that the Babylonians will not come back, because they will. ₁₀Even if you defeat the whole Babylonian army, so that only wounded men are left, lying in their tents, those men would still get up and burn this city to the ground.”

₁₁The Babylonian army retreated from Jerusalem because the Egyptian army was approaching. ₁₂So I started to leave Jerusalem and go to the territory of Benjamin to take possession of my share of the family property. ₁₃But when I reached the Benjamin Gate, the officer in charge of the soldiers on duty there, a man by the name of Irijah, the son of Shelemiah and grandson of Hananiah, stopped me and said, “You are deserting to the Babylonians!”

₁₄I answered, “That's not so! I'm not deserting.” But Irijah would not listen to me. Instead, he arrested me and took me to the officials. ₁₅They were furious with me and ordered me to be beaten and locked up in the house of Jonathan, the court secretary, whose house had been made into a prison. ₁₆I was put in an underground cell and kept there a long time.

₁₇Later on King Zedekiah sent for me, and there in the palace he asked me privately, “Is there any message from the LORD?”

“There is,” I answered, and added, “You will be handed over to the king of Babylonia.” ₁₈Then I asked, “What crime have I committed against you or your officials or this people, to make you put me in prison? ₁₉What happened to your prophets who told you that the king of Babylonia would not attack you or the country? ₂₀And now, Your Majesty, I beg you to listen to me and do what I ask. Please do not send me back to the prison in Jonathan's house. If you do, I will surely die there.”

₂₁So King Zedekiah ordered me to be locked up in the palace courtyard. I stayed there, and each day I was given a loaf of bread from the bakeries until all the bread in the city was gone.

₁Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malchiah heard that I was telling the people that ₂the LORD had said, “Whoever stays on in the city will die in war or of starvation or disease. But those who go out and surrender to the Babylonians will not be killed; they will at least escape with their lives.” ₃I was also telling them that the LORD had said, “I am going to give the city to the Babylonian army, and they will capture it.”

₄Then the officials went to the king and said, “This man must be put to death. By talking like this he is making the soldiers in the city lose their courage, and he is doing the same thing to everyone else left in the city. He is not trying to help the people; he only wants to hurt them.”

₅King Zedekiah answered, “Very well, then, do what you wish with him; I can't stop you.” ₆So they took me and let me down by ropes into Prince Malchiah's well, which was in the palace courtyard. There was no water in the well, only mud, and I sank down in it.

₇However, Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who worked in the royal palace, heard that they had put me in the well. At that time the king was holding court at the Benjamin Gate. ₈So Ebedmelech went there and said to the king, ₉“Your Majesty, what these men have done is wrong. They have put Jeremiah in the well, where he is sure to die of starvation, since there is no more food in the city.” ₁₀Then the king ordered Ebedmelech to take with him three men and to pull me out of the well before I died. ₁₁So Ebedmelech went with the men to the palace storeroom and got some worn-out clothing which he let down to me by ropes. ₁₂He told me to put the rags under my arms, so that the ropes wouldn't hurt me. I did this, ₁₃and they pulled me up out of the well. After that I was kept in the courtyard.

₁₄On another occasion King Zedekiah had me brought to him at the third entrance to the Temple, and he said, “I am going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the whole truth.”

₁₅I answered, “If I tell you the truth, you will put me to death, and if I give you advice, you won't pay any attention.”

₁₆So King Zedekiah promised me in secret, “I swear by the living God, the God who gave us life, that I will not put you to death or hand you over to the men who want to kill you.”

₁₇Then I told Zedekiah that the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, had said, “If you surrender to the king of Babylonia's officers, your life will be spared, and this city will not be burnt down. Both you and your family will be spared. ₁₈But if you do not surrender, then this city will be handed over to the Babylonians, who will burn it down, and you will not escape from them.”

₁₉But the king answered, “I am afraid of our countrymen who have deserted to the Babylonians. I may be handed over to them and tortured.”

₂₀I said, “You will not be handed over to them. I beg you to obey the LORD's message; then all will go well with you, and your life will be spared. ₂₁But the LORD has shown me in a vision what will happen if you refuse to surrender. ₂₂In it I saw all the women left in Judah's royal palace being led out to the king of Babylonia's officers. Listen to what they were saying as they went:

₂₃Then I added, “All your women and children will be taken out to the Babylonians, and you yourself will not escape from them. You will be taken prisoner by the king of Babylonia, and this city will be burnt to the ground.”

₂₄Zedekiah replied, “Don't let anyone know about this conversation, and your life will not be in danger. ₂₅If the officials hear that I have talked with you, they will come and ask you what we said. They will promise not to put you to death if you tell them everything. ₂₆Just tell them you were begging me not to send you back to prison to die there.” ₂₇Then all the officials came and questioned me, and I told them exactly what the king had told me to say. There was nothing else they could do, because no one had overheard the conversation. ₂₈And I was kept in the palace courtyard until the day Jerusalem was captured.