14. Then 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.
16. After he had read it, they turned to one another in alarm, and said to Baruch, “We must report this to the king.”
17. Then they asked him, “Tell us, now, how did you come to write all this? Did Jeremiah dictate it to you?”
18. Baruch answered, “Jeremiah dictated every word of it to me, and I wrote it down in ink on this scroll.”
19. Then they said to him, “You and Jeremiah must go and hide. Don't let anyone know where you are.”
20. The 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.
21. Then 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.
22. It was winter and the king was sitting in his winter palace in front of the fire.
23. As 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.
24. But neither the king nor any of his officials who heard all this was afraid or showed any sign of sorrow.
25. Although Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, he paid no attention to them.
26. Then 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.
27. After King Jehoiakim had burnt the scroll that I had dictated to Baruch, the Lord told me
28. to take another scroll and write on it everything that had been on the first one.
29. The 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.