Study Desk

But you have changed your minds and profaned my name. Each has taken back his male and female slaves who had been let go free to go wherever they wanted, and you have again forced them to be your slaves.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me by proclaiming freedom, each for his fellow Hebrew and for his neighbor. I hereby proclaim freedom for you—this is the Lord’s declaration—to the sword, to plague, and to famine! I will make you a horror to all the earth’s kingdoms.

I will hand King Zedekiah of Judah and his officials over to their enemies, to those who intend to take their lives, to the king of Babylon’s army that is withdrawing.

So I took Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah, son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons—the entire house of the Rechabites—

The words of Jonadab, son of Rechab, have been carried out. He commanded his descendants not to drink wine, and they have not drunk to this day because they have obeyed their ancestor’s command. But I have spoken to you time and time again, and you have not obeyed me!

Time and time again I have sent you all my servants the prophets, proclaiming, “Turn, each one from his evil way, and correct your actions. Stop following other gods to serve them. Live in the land that I gave you and your ancestors.” But you did not pay attention or obey me.

But to the house of the Rechabites Jeremiah said, “This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Because you have obeyed the command of your ancestor Jonadab and have kept all his commands and have done everything he commanded you,

Perhaps when the house of Judah hears about all the disaster I am planning to bring on them, each one of them will turn from his evil way. Then I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.”

so you must go and read from the scroll—which you wrote at my dictation—the words of the Lord in the hearing of the people at the temple of the Lord on a day of fasting. Read his words in the hearing of all the Judeans who are coming from their cities.

Perhaps their petition will come before the Lord, and each one will turn from his evil way, for the anger and fury that the Lord has pronounced against this people are intense.”

Then they asked Baruch, “Tell us, how did you write all these words? At his dictation?”

Baruch said to them, “At his dictation. He recited all these words to me while I was writing on the scroll in ink.”

Since it was the ninth month, the king was sitting in his winter quarters with a fire burning in front of him.

As they heard all these words, the king and all of his servants did not become terrified or tear their clothes.

Therefore, this is what the Lord says concerning King Jehoiakim of Judah: He will have no one to sit on David’s throne, and his corpse will be thrown out to be exposed to the heat of day and the frost of night.

I will punish him, his descendants, and his officers for their iniquity. I will bring on them, on the residents of Jerusalem, and on the people of Judah all the disaster, which I warned them about but they did not listen.’”

He and his officers and the people of the land did not obey the words of the Lord that he spoke through the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was going about his daily tasks among the people, for he had not yet been put into the prison.

Indeed, if you were to strike down the entire Chaldean army that is fighting with you, and there remained among them only the badly wounded men, each in his tent, they would get up and burn this city.’”

Jeremiah started to leave Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin to claim his portion there among the people.