Jeremiah 45

This is the message that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch son of Neriah. Jeremiah spoke it to him after Baruch had written these words on a scroll while Jeremiah said them out loud. This was in the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah. Jeremiah said:

1The word that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying,

NoteBaruch son of Neriah was Jeremiah's secretary; he came from a well-connected family (his brother Seraiah held a court post under King Zedekiah). A "book" in 1611 English meant a scroll (a long roll of papyrus or leather, written on and rolled up, not bound pages. "At the mouth of Jeremiah" means by dictation: Jeremiah spoke, Baruch wrote. The scene behind this chapter is told in Jeremiah 36. The fourth year of Jehoiakim was about 605 BC, the year Babylon defeated Egypt at Carchemish and became the dominant power over Judah) roughly eighteen years before Jerusalem fell. The chapter is dated far earlier than the chapters around it; the book is not arranged in date order.

2This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says to you, Baruch:

2Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch:

Note"The LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters usually written YHWH. Jewish readers avoided saying it aloud and substituted the ordinary word for "lord," and English translations have followed that practice ever since.

3You said, "How terrible things are for me! The LORD has piled grief on top of the pain I already had. I am worn out from my own groaning, and I cannot find any rest."

3Thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the LORD hath added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest.

4Here is what you are to say to Baruch. The LORD says this: What I have built, I am going to tear down. What I have planted, I am going to pull up by the roots. I will do this to the whole land.

4Thus shalt thou say unto him, The LORD saith thus; Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land.

Note"Build" and "plant" paired against "break down" and "pluck up" are the same four verbs used when Jeremiah was first commissioned (Jeremiah 1:10); they are the book's standing formula for God making and unmaking a nation. The Hebrew of this verse is compressed, and the last phrase can be read either as "even this whole land" (the object of the tearing down) or as "and that is the whole land of it", translators differ on where it attaches.

5And are you looking for great things for yourself? Stop looking for them. I am going to bring disaster on every living person, says the LORD. But wherever you go, I will let you escape with your life.

5And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.

Note"Great things" is unspecified in the Hebrew, position, wealth, safety, a career at court, or a prophetic reputation of his own; the text does not say which, and readers have argued the point for centuries. "I will give thy life unto thee for a prey" is a battlefield idiom: plunder is what a fighter carries off from a lost battle, and here the only plunder Baruch gets is his own survival. "All flesh" is a Hebrew phrase for every living creature, sometimes narrowed to all human beings; both senses are possible here.