Zedekiah Consults Jeremiah Again

¹⁴ King Zedekiah sent for the prophet Jeremiah and received him at the third entrance of the temple of the Lord. The king said to Jeremiah, “I have something to ask you; do not hide anything from me.”^{(A) 15} Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I tell you, you will put me to death, will you not? And if I give you advice, you will not listen to me.”^{(B) 16} So King Zedekiah swore an oath in secret to Jeremiah, “As the Lord lives, who gave us our lives, I will not put you to death or hand you over to these men who seek your life.”^(C)

¹⁷ Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If you will only surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live.^{(D) 18} But if you do not surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then this city shall be handed over to the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand.”^{(E) 19} King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans, for I might be handed over to them, and they would abuse me.”^{(F) 20} Jeremiah said, “That will not happen. Just obey the voice of the Lord in what I say to you, and it shall go well with you, and your life shall be spared.^{(G) 21} But if you are determined not to surrender, this is what the Lord has shown me: ²² a vision of all the women remaining in the house of the king of Judah being led out to the officials of the king of Babylon and saying,

²³ “All your wives and your children shall be led out to the Chaldeans, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand but shall be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city shall be burned with fire.”^(I)

²⁴ Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone else know of this conversation, or you will die. ²⁵ If the officials should hear that I have spoken with you and come and say to you, ‘Just tell us what you said to the king; do not conceal it from us, or we will put you to death. What did the king say to you?’^{(J) 26} then you shall say to them, ‘I was presenting my plea to the king not to send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.’ ”^{(K) 27} All the officials did come to Jeremiah and questioned him, and he answered them in the very words the king had commanded. So they stopped questioning him, for the conversation had not been overheard.^{(L) 28} And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken.^(M)

Shining as Lights in the World

¹² Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence but much more now in my absence, work on your own salvation with fear and trembling,^{(A) 13} for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

¹⁴ Do all things without murmuring and arguing,^{(B) 15} so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world,^{(C) 16} holding forth the word of life so that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.^(D)

¹⁷ But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the service of your faith, I rejoice, and I rejoice together with all of you;^{(E) 18} in the same way also you should rejoice and rejoice together with me.

Timothy and Epaphroditus

¹⁹ I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I, too, may be consoled by news of you. ²⁰ I have no one so like myself who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. ²¹ All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.^{(F) 22} But Timothy’s^[a] worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.^{(G) 23} I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me, ²⁴ and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon.

²⁵ Still, I think it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus—my brother and coworker and fellow soldier, your messenger^[b] and minister to my need,^{(H) 26} for he has been longing for^[c] all of you and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. ²⁷ He was indeed so ill that he nearly died. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, so that I would not have one sorrow after another. ²⁸ I am the more eager to send him, therefore, in order that you may rejoice at seeing him again and that I may be less anxious. ²⁹ Welcome him, then, in the Lord with all joy, and honor such people,^{(I) 30} because he came close to death for the work of Christ,^[d] risking his life to make up for those services that you could not give me.

The Fall of Jerusalem

39 This is how Jerusalem was captured:^[a] in the ninth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, in the tenth month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and besieged it;^{(A) 2} in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city.^{(B) 3} Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came and sat in the middle gate: Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, with all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.^{(C) 4} When King Zedekiah of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled, going out of the city at night by way of the King’s Garden through the gate between the two walls, and they went toward the Arabah.^{(D) 5} But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and when they had taken him, they brought him up to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him.^{(E) 6} The king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah at Riblah before his eyes; also the king of Babylon slaughtered all the nobles of Judah.^{(F) 7} He put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in fetters to take him to Babylon.^{(G) 8} The Chaldeans burned with fire the king’s house and the houses of the people and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.^{(H) 9} Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard exiled to Babylon the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to him, and the rest of the people who remained.^{(I) 10} Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left in the land of Judah some of the poor people who owned nothing and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time.^(J)

Jeremiah, Set Free, Remembers Ebed-melech

¹¹ King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon gave command concerning Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, saying,^{(K) 12} “Take him, look after him well, and do him no harm, but deal with him as he may ask you.” ¹³ So Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, Nebushazban the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the chief officers of the king of Babylon sent ¹⁴ and took Jeremiah from the court of the guard. They entrusted him to Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan to be brought home. So he stayed with his own people.^(L)

¹⁵ The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was confined in the court of the guard: ¹⁶ Go and say to Ebed-melech the Cushite: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to fulfill my words against this city for evil and not for good, and they shall be accomplished in your presence on that day.^{(M) 17} But I will save you on that day, says the Lord, and you shall not be handed over to those whom you dread.^{(N) 18} For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have trusted in me, says the Lord.^(O)

The Plot to Kill Jesus

⁴⁵ Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him.^{(A) 46} But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.^{(B) 48} If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place^[a] and our nation.” ⁴⁹ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!^{(C) 50} You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”^{(D) 51} He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, ⁵² and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. ⁵³ So from that day on they planned to put him to death.^(E)

⁵⁴ Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness, and he remained there with the disciples.^(F)

⁵⁵ Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves.^{(G) 56} They were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?” ⁵⁷ Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus^[b] was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.