1. In 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.
3. Perhaps 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.”
4. So 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.
5. Then I gave Baruch the following instructions: “I am no longer allowed to go into the Temple.
6. But 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.
7. Perhaps 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.”
8. So Baruch read the Lord's words in the Temple exactly as I had told him to do.
9. In 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.