⁴ If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.”

¹⁷ “But ^(A)when he ^(B)came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! ¹⁸ I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, ^(C)I have sinned against ^(D)heaven and before you. ^19 (E)I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’

^9 (A)Who knows? God may turn and relent ^(B)and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

¹⁶ “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for ^(A)three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, ^(B)and if I perish, I perish.”^[a]

¹⁴ We must all die; we are ^(A)like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and he devises means ^(B)so that the banished one will not remain an outcast.

²⁷ And just as ^(A)it is appointed for man to die once, and ^(B)after that comes judgment,

¹³ When he was at ^(A)the Benjamin Gate, a sentry there named Irijah the son of ^(B)Shelemiah, son of Hananiah, seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, ^(C)“You are deserting to the Chaldeans.” ¹⁴ And Jeremiah said, “It is a lie; I am not deserting to the Chaldeans.” But Irijah would not listen to him, and seized Jeremiah and brought him to ^(D)the officials.