They said to him, “Please sit down and read it to us.” So Baruch sat down and read it to them.

Even now you say to me, ‘You are my father! You have been my faithful companion ever since I was young.

They are regarded as ‘rejected silver’ because the Lord rejects them.”

When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, I will hear your prayers.

They set up their disgusting idols in the temple which I have claimed for my own and defiled it.

There at home they will say, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is just a big noise! He has let the most opportune moment pass by.’

Under his rule Judah will enjoy safety and Israel will live in security. This is the name he will go by: ‘The Lord has provided us with justice.’

Zephaniah the priest read that letter to the prophet Jeremiah.

‘Call on me in prayer and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious things which you still do not know about.’

Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon, make sure you read aloud all these prophecies.

“I thought to myself, ‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! What a joy it would be for me to give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ and would never cease being loyal to me.

For take note, I am already beginning to bring disaster on the city that I call my own. So how can you possibly avoid being punished? You will not go unpunished! For I am proclaiming war against all who live on the earth. I, the Lord who rules over all, affirm it!’

Recently, however, you yourselves showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own.

So you go there the next time all the people of Judah come in from their towns to fast in the Lord’s temple. Read out loud where all of them can hear you what I told you the Lord said, which you wrote in the scroll.

The Lord said, “Announce this in Judah and proclaim it in Jerusalem: ‘Sound the trumpet throughout the land!’ Shout out loudly, ‘Gather together! Let us flee into the fortified cities!’

I see one destruction after another taking place, so that the whole land lies in ruins. I see our tents suddenly destroyed, their curtains torn down in a mere instant.

Then you come and stand in my presence in this temple I have claimed as my own and say, “We are safe!” You think you are so safe that you go on doing all those hateful sins!

Do you think this temple I have claimed as my own is to be a hideout for robbers? You had better take note! I have seen for myself what you have done! says the Lord.

So I will destroy this temple which I have claimed as my own, this temple that you are trusting to protect you. I will destroy this place that I gave to you and your ancestors, just like I destroyed Shiloh.

Then the Lord said to me, “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you. When you call out to them, they will not respond to you.