I answered, “Oh, Lord God, I really do not know how to speak well enough for that, for I am too young.”

Then the Lord said, “You have observed correctly. This means I am watching to make sure my threats are carried out.”

They will attack you but they will not be able to overcome you, for I will be with you to rescue you,” says the Lord.

“Israel is not a slave, is he? He was not born into slavery, was he? If not, why then is he being carried off?

“It did no good for me to punish your people. They did not respond to such correction. You slaughtered your prophets like a voracious lion.”

“I looked at the land and saw that it was an empty wasteland. I looked up at the sky, and its light had vanished.

All this will happen because the Lord said, “The whole land will be desolate; however, I will not completely destroy it.

Tell them: ‘Hear this, you foolish people who have no understanding, who have eyes but do not discern, who have ears but do not perceive:

But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts. They have turned aside and gone their own way.

I said, “There is no one like you, Lord. You are great. And you are renowned for your power.

So I will pull your skirt up over your face and expose you to shame like a disgraced adulteress!

Their children are always thinking about their altars and their sacred poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, set up beside the green trees on the high hills

The human mind is more deceitful than anything else. It is incurably bad. Who can understand it?

You will never come back to this land to which you will long to return!”

My message is like a fire that purges dross! It is like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces! I, the Lord, so affirm it!

So I, the Lord, affirm that I am opposed to those prophets who steal messages from one another that they claim are from me.

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

We have lived in tents. We have obeyed our ancestor Jonadab and done exactly as he commanded us.

Baruch answered, “Yes, they came from his own mouth. He dictated all these words to me and I wrote them down in ink on this scroll.”

Then the officials said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah must go and hide. You must not let anyone know where you are.”