¹² I also spoke to ^(A)Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live!

¹⁷ Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘If you surely ^(A)surrender^{[a] (B)}to the king of Babylon’s princes, then your soul shall live; this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live.

Hananiah’s Falsehood and Doom

28 And ^(A)it happened in the same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the ^(B)fourth year and in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of ^(C)Azur the prophet, who was from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the Lord in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying,

¹¹ Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ¹² “Say now to ^(A)the rebellious house: ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Indeed ^(B)the king of Babylon went to Jerusalem and took its king and princes, and led them with him to Babylon. ^13 (C)And he took the king’s offspring, made a covenant with him, ^(D)and put him under oath. He also took away the mighty of the land, ¹⁴ that the kingdom might be ^(E)brought low and not lift itself up, but that by keeping his covenant it might stand. ¹⁵ But ^(F)he rebelled against him by sending his ambassadors to Egypt, ^(G)that they might give him horses and many people. ^(H)Will he prosper? Will he who does such things escape? Can he break a covenant and still be delivered?

¹⁶ ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely ^(I)in the place where the king dwells who made him king, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke—with him in the midst of Babylon he shall die. ^17 (J)Nor will Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company do anything in the war, ^(K)when they heap up a siege mound and build a ^[a]wall to cut off many persons. ¹⁸ Since he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, and in fact ^(L)gave^[b] his hand and still did all these things, he shall not escape.’ ”

¹⁹ Therefore thus says the Lord God: “As I live, surely My oath which he despised, and My covenant which he broke, I will recompense on his own head. ²⁰ I will ^(M)spread My net over him, and he shall be taken in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon and ^(N)try him there for the ^[c]treason which he committed against Me. ^21 (O)All his ^[d]fugitives with all his troops shall fall by the sword, and those who remain shall be ^(P)scattered to every wind; and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken.”

⁸ And it shall be, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish,’ says the Lord, ‘with the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.

² “Thus says the Lord to me: ‘Make for yourselves bonds and yokes, ^(A)and put them on your neck, ³ and send them to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the Ammonites, the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah.

Zedekiah Reigns in Judah^(A)

^11 (B)Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹² He did evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and ^(C)did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the Lord. ¹³ And he also ^(D)rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear an oath by God; but he ^(E)stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord God of Israel.