Reading
- Jer. 36:1-4; 45:1-5; 36:5-32
Devotional
After 23 years of Jeremiah's prophesying GOD told him to write down all of the words GOD had given him over the years in a scroll, that perhaps the people of Judah would hear of the coming disasters GOD was bringing upon them and turn from their evil ways so that they could be forgiven. Jeremiah called a man named Baruch to write the words on the scroll as Jeremiah told him. The project took months to complete.
Jeremiah told Baruch to go and read the scroll in the temple during a day of fasting. Jeremiah said he had been banned from the temple. When the officials heard Baruch reading, they asked him to come read the scroll to them. They were afraid and they advised Baruch and Jeremiah to hide without telling anyone where they were. They then took the scroll to king Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim burned the scroll in the fire that he was using to keep warm, piece by piece, as they read it to him. They tried to keep him from burning the scroll but he would not listen.
27 Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words which Baruch had written at the instruction of Jeremiah, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying: 28 “Take yet another scroll, and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned. 29 And you shall say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, ‘Thus says the LORD: “You have burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and cause man and beast to cease from here?’” 30 Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: “He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night. 31 I will punish him, his family, and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring on them, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah all the doom that I have pronounced against them; but they did not heed.”’”
32 Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the instruction of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And besides, there were added to them many similar words.
(Jer. 36:27-32 NKJV)
Jehoiakim's life story—at least his ending—could have been so different if he had chosen to repent and listen to GOD. Yet he did not. And he would receive severe punishment as a result. Learn from Jehoiakim's mistakes. Listen to the words GOD has written down to instruct you how to live.
