The word that Jeremiah … spoke to Baruch: This verse is Jeremiah’s introduction to the LORD’s words to Baruch. Good News Translation retains a first person reference to Jeremiah, as it has mostly done throughout the book. For Baruch see 32.12. As far as is known, Baruch was Jeremiah’s only close follower during the troubled years of Jeremiah’s ministry.

He wrote these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah: Old Testament scholars assume that this refers to the scroll referred to in 36.1-32. For this reason, “scroll” (see 36.2) is better than book. The phrase at the dictation of is literally “from the mouth of” (see 36.4), which Good News Translation transforms into a verb construction, “what I had dictated to him.”

In the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, the king of Judah: Since it is more natural in English to begin a sentence with the time clause, Good News Translation opens with “In the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah….” For Jehoiakim see 1.3.

For the whole verse translators can say something such as:

• In the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, Baruch wrote down in a scroll what Jeremiah told him to. Then Jeremiah said to him….

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .