Jeremiah 36:1-7 - Take a scroll, and write on it

36:1-3

This section gives a clue to how the words of prophets were maintained. They wrote them down! Here God explicitly tells Jeremiah to write down all the words that God had spoken to him. These words concerned Israel, Judah and all the other nations. The hope was that the people would respond to the prospect of the coming judgement by repenting, turning from their wicked ways. If they did this then God would have forgiven them. Now does this mean that God did not know what the people would do? Absolutely not. Rather it expresses the heart of God. People are not condemned because God wants to condemn them, but because they refuse to repent.

36:4-7

So Jeremiah called Baruch, his companion, and recited all the words of the Lord to him, and Baruch duly wrote them all down on a scroll. At the time Jeremiah was not allowed to go to the Lord’s temple (they couldn’t have the word of the Lord preached in the temple of the Lord!). Apparently Baruch was not under the same restriction, so Jeremiah sent him to read the word of the Lord to them. The word of the Lord is given so that people will hear it. Jeremiah, like the Lord, hoped that the people would repent.