Jeremiah and Baruch

God made a promise to his special people. He said, “I will always look after you.” All they had to do was follow God, worship Him, and try their very best to do what He said.

If they did that, God promised to keep them safe from their enemies.

Now, these special people were split into two groups, like two big families. They were called Israel and Judah. But, oh dear, the Israel family didn’t listen to God. They started to worship things that weren’t God, like statues, and they were really mean to each other.

Guess what happened next? Some not-so-friendly neighbors came and took away the Israel family’s kingdom because they weren’t being nice and listening to God.

Now, let’s hop over to the kingdom of Judah. In this land, they had lots of kings. Some of these kings were really good. They loved God and prayed to Him.

But, uh-oh, not all of them were good. Some of them liked to worship things that weren’t God, like statues.

One day, when the people in Israel forgot about God and started to pray to those statues again, God did something really special. He sent a wise man named Jeremiah to talk to them.

God said to Jeremiah, “Take a big piece of paper called a scroll, and write down all the important things I’m telling you.”

Jeremiah was a wise man who had a friend named Baruch. They were quite the team!

Jeremiah would listen carefully to what God wanted to say, and then he’d tell Baruch all about it.

Baruch’s job was to write down every single word from God on a long piece of paper called a scroll.

They worked together really hard, and soon that scroll was filled with all of God’s messages.

Now, the special message from the Lord was this: If the people didn’t stop praying to those statues and idols, something sad would happen. The big, bustling city of Jerusalem would be broken, and even the beautiful temple and houses would be set on fire. 😔🏛️🔥

Oh dear, the king and lots of other people were getting really upset with Jeremiah. You see, Jeremiah was like a brave messenger, but his messages weren’t always easy to hear. He kept telling them they had to do something called “repent.”

Now, “repent” might sound like a big word, but it’s not. It simply means saying, “I’m sorry” for the bad things you’ve done. Like when you ate that last cookie without asking, you’d say, “I’m sorry.”

But guess what? Saying sorry is just the first step. Repenting means you not only saying sorry but also you promise to stop doing the bad things and try your very best to do good things instead.

So, Jeremiah wanted the people to say sorry for praying to statues and not God. But he also wanted them to stop doing that and start following God’s instructions.

Jeremiah was a smart guy, and he could tell that a lot of people were really mad at him.

He thought, “Hmm, maybe they won’t listen if I tell them myself.” So, he came up with a plan.

He turned to his friend Baruch and said, “Baruch, could you do me a favor?”

Jeremiah handed over the important scroll to Baruch. He told Baruch to go to the big temple where loads of people were gathered.

Now, Baruch had a big job. He had to stand there in front of everyone and read all the words from that special scroll.

When everyone got together at the big temple, Baruch stood up and started reading God’s message.

Now, some of King Jehoiakim’s helpers were there too.

You see, the king wasn’t too fond of God’s message because he liked doing things that weren’t quite right, like praying to statues instead of God. He didn’t want to say sorry for those bad things or change his ways to do better.

So, those helpers of the king realized that this message from God about saying sorry and doing good things might make the king pretty upset.

Now, these helpers of King Jehoiakim thought, “We should hear this message ourselves.”

So, they invited Baruch to come and read that special scroll to them.

After they listened to the message, they asked Baruch, “Baruch, where did you get this important message from?”

Baruch smiled and said, “Oh, it’s from the wise prophet Jeremiah, of course!”

The king’s helpers knew that the king would be really, really mad when he will hear this message.

So, they decided to be smart. They said to Baruch, “Listen, you better go find Jeremiah, and both of you should hide. We’re going to take this scroll to the king, and things might not end good.”

So, those helpers of the king took the scroll from Baruch and presented it to the king.

The king said, “Alright, go get it and read it to me.” He was curious but didn’t know what was coming.

When they read God’s message to the king, oh boy, he got really, really mad!

The message told him he should say sorry and do better, and he didn’t like hearing that one bit. His face turned all red, and he clenched his fists because he didn’t want to hear about repenting.

The king was sitting near a cozy, warm fire because it was winter. But as they kept reading the message from God, he got angrier and angrier.

You won’t believe what he did! He had a special knife that scribes use, and every time they read a few lines of the message, he would cut that part off the scroll.

Then, without a second thought, he tossed it into the crackling fire.

Before long, the entire scroll was gone, turned into ashes by the flames. It was like the king was saying, “I don’t want to hear this message anymore!”

And that’s how the king showed he didn’t respect the word of the Lord.

After all that happened, the king was so upset that he sent his men to find Jeremiah and Baruch and bring them to him.

But guess what?

No one could find them, and they were safe and sound.

Then, something amazing occurred. God sent another message to Jeremiah.

Once again, Jeremiah spoke these important words, and Baruch, his trusty friend, wrote them down. But this time, they used a fresh, new scroll.

On this new scroll, they wrote down all the same words as the old one.

But there was something extra special for King Jehoiakim. The message said that because he didn’t listen to God’s words and didn’t say sorry for his wrongdoings, bad things were going to happen to him.

It’s a reminder that listening to God and doing the right thing is important!