Our God is so astonishingly hopeful, trying yet again to get the people to repent, directing Jeremiah to create a scroll with all the accumulated warnings written on it. “It may be that when the house of Judah hears of all the disasters that I intend to do to them, all of them may turn from their evil ways so that I may forgive their iniquity” (Jeremiah 36:3). As before, we see God pondering about possible futures: “It MAY be … all of them MAY turn from their evil ways … ” Can it be that the future is more open than we might have thought, with God hoping we will repent, but not yet knowing whether we will?

Jeremiah got to work, preparing a scroll with all the warnings. He dictated the words, and his secretary Baruch wrote it all down. Then, since Jeremiah was forbidden to go into the temple court (36:5), he sent Baruch to read it to the people there (36:6-10).

When King Jehoiakim’s officials heard about it, they came to listen, and were greatly alarmed (36:16). They told Baruch and Jeremiah to hide, and brought the scroll to report to the king (36:20). The king was not pleased. He had Jehudi son of Nethaniah read it out, and after every three or four columns, the king would cut that material out of the scroll with his pen knife and burn it in the fire (36:23).

Most of the people of the court made no comment about this, but several of the officials – Elnathan, Delaiah and Gemariah – urged King Jehoiakim not to do this (36:25), but he shrugged off their warnings and sent officers to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch. Yet they escaped, for the time being, because “the Lord hid them” (36:26). The next prophecy, predictably, was that things would not end well for Jehoiakim (36:30-31).

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You have such hope for us, O Lord: though we have failed so often, you keep sending someone with a message, thinking maybe we will listen this time: and we shrug off the warning, burn the message, and try to kill the messenger. Yet still you hope the best for us: grant that our hearts may turn to you, that we may yet learn to be worthy of your hope.

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