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Baruch, Jeremiah’s trusted friend and scribe, is in agony because he is aware of the reality of the coming judgment, the distress of which will affect even the faithful like himself (45:3). Yahweh’s word to him through Jeremiah implies that Yahweh also is in pain because what he plans to uproot is what he has planted (v.4). When Yahweh executes his judgment, it is not a time for the faithful to seek great things for themselves or to worry about their own lives. Yahweh’s command, “Seek them not,” conversely is a call to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (v.5; cf. Mt 6:33). The only reward Yahweh promises to Baruch is the preservation of his life in the midst of death and destruction of the wicked (v.5), which indeed is the greatest gift of God to those who are faithful to him.