They said to him, “Please sit down and read it to us.” So Baruch sat down and read it to them. ¹ 

Even now you say to me, ‘You are my father! ¹  You have been my faithful companion ever since I was young.

They are regarded as ‘rejected silver’ ¹  because the Lord rejects them.”

When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, ¹  I will hear your prayers. ² 

They set up their disgusting idols in the temple which I have claimed for my own ¹  and defiled it.

There at home they will say, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is just a big noise! ¹  He has let the most opportune moment pass by.’ ² 

Under his rule ¹  Judah will enjoy safety ²  and Israel will live in security. ³  This is the name he will go by: ‘The Lord has provided us with justice.’ ⁴ 

Zephaniah the priest read that letter to the prophet Jeremiah. ¹ 

‘Call on me in prayer and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious ¹  things which you still do not know about.’

Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon, make sure ¹  you read aloud all these prophecies. ² 

“I thought to myself, ¹  ‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! ²  What a joy it would be for me to give ³  you a pleasant land, the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ ⁴  I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ ⁵  and would never cease being loyal to me. ⁶ 

For take note, I am already beginning to bring disaster on the city that I call my own. ¹  So how can you possibly avoid being punished? ²  You will not go unpunished! For I am proclaiming war against all who live on the earth. I, the Lord who rules over all, ³  affirm it!’ ⁴ 

Recently, however, you yourselves ¹  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. ² 

So you go there the next time all the people of Judah come in from their towns to fast ¹  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. ² 

The Lord said, ¹  “Announce ²  this in Judah and proclaim it in Jerusalem: ³  ‘Sound the trumpet ⁴  throughout the land!’ Shout out loudly, ‘Gather together! Let us flee into the fortified cities!’

I see ¹  one destruction after another taking place, so that the whole land lies in ruins. I see our ²  tents suddenly destroyed, their ³  curtains torn down in a mere instant. ⁴ 

Then you come and stand in my presence in this temple I have claimed as my own ¹  and say, “We are safe!” You think you are so safe that you go on doing all those hateful sins! ² 

Do you think this temple I have claimed as my own ¹  is to be a hideout for robbers? ²  You had better take note! ³  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, ¹  this temple that you are trusting to protect you. I will destroy this place that I gave to you and your ancestors, ²  just like I destroyed Shiloh. ³ 

Then the Lord said to me, ¹  “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you. When you call out to them, they will not respond to you.