¹²Then he went to the royal palace, to the room of the court secretary, where all the officials were in session. Elishama, the court secretary, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officials were there. ¹³Micaiah told them everything that he had heard Baruch read to the people. ¹⁴Then the officials sent Jehudi (the son of Nethaniah, grandson of Shelemiah, and great-grandson of Cushi) to tell Baruch to bring the scroll that he had read to the people. Baruch brought them the scroll. ¹⁵“Sit down,” they said, “and read the scroll to us.” So Baruch did. ¹⁶After he had read it, they turned to one another in alarm, and said to Baruch, “We must report this to the king.” ¹⁷Then they asked him, “Tell us, now, how did you come to write all this? Did Jeremiah dictate it to you?”

¹⁸Baruch answered, “Jeremiah dictated every word of it to me, and I wrote it down in ink on this scroll.”

¹⁹Then they said to him, “You and Jeremiah must go and hide. Don’t let anyone know where you are.”

The King Burns the Scroll

²⁰The officials put the scroll in the room of Elishama, the court secretary, and went to the king’s court, where they reported everything to the king. ²¹Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He took it from the room of Elishama and read it to the king and all the officials who were standing round him. ²²It was winter and the king was sitting in his winter palace in front of the fire. ²³As soon as Jehudi finished reading three or four columns, the king cut them off with a small knife and threw them into the fire. He kept doing this until the entire scroll was burnt up. ²⁴But neither the king nor any of his officials who heard all this was afraid or showed any sign of sorrow. ²⁵Although Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, he paid no attention to them.

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