4. So I called Baruch son of Neriah and dictated to him everything that the Lord had said to me. And Baruch wrote it all down on a scroll.
5. Then I gave Baruch the following instructions: “I am no longer allowed to go into the Temple.
6. But I want you to go there the next time the people are fasting. You are to read the scroll aloud, so that they will hear everything that the Lord has said to me and that I have dictated to you. Do this where everyone can hear you, including the people of Judah who have come in from their towns.
7. Perhaps they will pray to the Lord and turn from their evil ways, because the Lord has threatened this people with his terrible anger and fury.”
8. So Baruch read the Lord's words in the Temple exactly as I had told him to do.
9. In the ninth month of the fifth year that Jehoiakim was king of Judah, the people fasted to gain the Lord's favour. The fast was kept by all who lived in Jerusalem and by all who came there from the towns of Judah.