Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 36-38.

In today’s passage we have two different, but equally bad responses to God’s word.  At the beginning of the passage, Jeremiah dictates a scroll of the prophecies which God has given him to Baruch, who then reads said scroll to the people entering the temple.  The express purpose of this was that when the people heard the disasters which God had planned they might repent of their sin and God would forgive them.  When officials discovered that this was going on they took the scroll to Jehoiakim, the king.  As the scroll was read to Jehoiakim, he casually cut off the parts which had already been read and burned them.  Jehoiakim then ordered Jeremiah and Baruch to be arrested, but the officers he sent to do this could not find them.  Jehoiakim casually ignored the words of warning which God had sent to him and continued to sin.  At the end of the passage, when Zedekiah was king he sent for Jeremiah and consulted him about God’s will.  But Zedekiah was afraid of what people might do to him if he did as God commanded.  Both Jehoiakim and Zedekiah refused to do as God commanded.  Jehoiakim did so because he did not fear God.  Zedekiah feared God, but he feared man more than he feared God.  Both men suffered because they would not listen to God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.