1 The Lord ’s Message to Baruch This is the word that the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Baruch son of Neriah when he wrote these words on a scroll at Jeremiah’s dictation Lit scroll from Jeremiah’s mouth in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah:2 “This is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says to you, Baruch:3 ‘You have said, “Woe is me, because the Lord has added misery to my pain! I am worn out with Lit I labored in my groaning and have found no rest.” ’4 “This is what you are to say to him: ‘This is what the Lord says: “What I have built I am about to demolish, and what I have planted I am about to uproot — the whole land!5 But as for you, do you pursue great things for yourself? Stop pursuing! For I am about to bring disaster on everyone” — this is the Lord ’s declaration — “but I will grant you your life like the spoils of war wherever you go.” ’ ”