Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Today's reading titled Words That Endure

was written by Tim Gustafson. In the early 19th century, Thomas Carlyle gave a manuscript to

philosopher John Stuart Mill to review. Somehow, whether accidentally or intentionally,

the manuscript got tossed into a fire. It was Carlisle's only copy. Undaunted, he set to work

rewriting the lost chapters. Mere Flames couldn't stop the story, which remained intact in his mind.

Out of great loss, Carlisle produced

his monumental work, a French Revolution. In the waning days of ancient Judah's decadent kingdom,

God told the prophet Jeremiah, take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you.

The message revealed God's tender heart, calling on his

people to repent in order to avoid imminent invasion. Jeremiah did as he was told. The scroll soon found

its way to Judah's king Jeholyakim, who methodically shredded it and threw it into the fire.

The king's act of arson only made matters worse. God told Jeremiah to write

another scroll with the same message. He said in chapter 36, Jehoia Kim will have no one to sit on the

throne of David. His body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night.

It's possible to burn the words of God by tossing a book into a fire.

Possible, but utterly futile.

The word behind the words endures forever.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional scripture reading is from Jeremiah chapter 36, verses 27 through 32.

After the king burned the scroll containing the words that Beiruk had written at Jeremiah's dictation,

the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

Take another scroll and write on it all the words

that were on the first scroll, which Jehoiakim, King of Judah, burned up. Also, tell Jehoiakim,

...