No Deliverance from Babylon

21 The Lord spoke through Jeremiah when King Zedekiah sent Pashhur son of Malkijah and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, the priest, to speak with him. They begged Jeremiah, ² “Please speak to the Lord for us and ask him to help us. King Nebuchadnezzar^[a] of Babylon is attacking Judah. Perhaps the Lord will be gracious and do a mighty miracle as he has done in the past. Perhaps he will force Nebuchadnezzar to withdraw his armies.”

³ Jeremiah replied, “Go back to King Zedekiah and tell him, ⁴ ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will make your weapons useless against the king of Babylon and the Babylonians^[b] who are outside your walls attacking you. In fact, I will bring your enemies right into the heart of this city. ⁵ I myself will fight against you with a strong hand and a powerful arm, for I am very angry. You have made me furious! ⁶ I will send a terrible plague upon this city, and both people and animals will die. ⁷ And after all that, says the Lord, I will hand over King Zedekiah, his staff, and everyone else in the city who survives the disease, war, and famine. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their other enemies. He will slaughter them and show them no mercy, pity, or compassion.’

⁸ “Tell all the people, ‘This is what the Lord says: Take your choice of life or death! ⁹ Everyone who stays in Jerusalem will die from war, famine, or disease, but those who go out and surrender to the Babylonians will live. Their reward will be life! ¹⁰ For I have decided to bring disaster and not good upon this city, says the Lord. It will be handed over to the king of Babylon, and he will reduce it to ashes.’

Judgment on Judah’s Kings

¹¹ “Say to the royal family of Judah, ‘Listen to this message from the Lord! ¹² This is what the Lord says to the dynasty of David:

⁴ Jeremiah had not yet been imprisoned, so he could come and go among the people as he pleased.

⁵ At this time the army of Pharaoh Hophra^[a] of Egypt appeared at the southern border of Judah. When the Babylonian^[b] army heard about it, they withdrew from their siege of Jerusalem.

³ Nevertheless, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the priest, son of Maaseiah, to ask Jeremiah, “Please pray to the Lord our God for us.”

⁶ Then the Lord gave this message to Jeremiah: ⁷ “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: The king of Judah sent you to ask me what is going to happen. Tell him, ‘Pharaoh’s army is about to return to Egypt, though he came here to help you. ⁸ Then the Babylonians^[a] will come back and capture this city and burn it to the ground.’

⁹ “This is what the Lord says: Do not fool yourselves into thinking that the Babylonians are gone for good. They aren’t! ¹⁰ Even if you were to destroy the entire Babylonian army, leaving only a handful of wounded survivors, they would still stagger from their tents and burn this city to the ground!”

A Warning for Zedekiah

34 King Nebuchadnezzar^[a] of Babylon came with all the armies from the kingdoms he ruled, and he fought against Jerusalem and the towns of Judah. At that time this message came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² “Go to King Zedekiah of Judah, and tell him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am about to hand this city over to the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down. ³ You will not escape his grasp but will be captured and taken to meet the king of Babylon face to face. Then you will be exiled to Babylon.

⁴ “‘But listen to this promise from the Lord, O Zedekiah, king of Judah. This is what the Lord says: You will not be killed in war ⁵ but will die peacefully. People will burn incense in your memory, just as they did for your ancestors, the kings who preceded you. They will mourn for you, crying, “Alas, our master is dead!” This I have decreed, says the Lord.’”

⁶ So Jeremiah the prophet delivered the message to King Zedekiah of Judah. ⁷ At this time the Babylonian army was besieging Jerusalem, Lachish, and Azekah—the only fortified cities of Judah not yet captured.

Freedom for Hebrew Slaves

⁸ This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah made a covenant with the people, proclaiming freedom for the slaves. ⁹ He had ordered all the people to free their Hebrew slaves—both men and women. No one was to keep a fellow Judean in bondage. ¹⁰ The officials and all the people had obeyed the king’s command, ¹¹ but later they changed their minds. They took back the men and women they had freed, forcing them to be slaves again.

¹² So the Lord gave them this message through Jeremiah: ¹³ “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors long ago when I rescued them from their slavery in Egypt. ¹⁴ I told them that every Hebrew slave must be freed after serving six years. But your ancestors paid no attention to me. ¹⁵ Recently you repented and did what was right, following my command. You freed your slaves and made a solemn covenant with me in the Temple that bears my name. ¹⁶ But now you have shrugged off your oath and defiled my name by taking back the men and women you had freed, forcing them to be slaves once again.

¹⁷ “Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Since you have not obeyed me by setting your countrymen free, I will set you free to be destroyed by war, disease, and famine. You will be an object of horror to all the nations of the earth. ¹⁸ Because you have broken the terms of our covenant, I will cut you apart just as you cut apart the calf when you walked between its halves to solemnize your vows. ¹⁹ Yes, I will cut you apart, whether you are officials of Judah or Jerusalem, court officials, priests, or common people—for you have broken your oath. ²⁰ I will give you to your enemies, and they will kill you. Your bodies will be food for the vultures and wild animals.

²¹ “I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah and his officials to the army of the king of Babylon. And although they have left Jerusalem for a while, ²² I will call the Babylonian armies back again. They will fight against this city and will capture it and burn it down. I will see to it that all the towns of Judah are destroyed, with no one living there.”

Jeremiah Is Imprisoned

¹¹ When the Babylonian army left Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s approaching army, ¹² Jeremiah started to leave the city on his way to the territory of Benjamin, to claim his share of the property among his relatives there.^{[a] 13} But as he was walking through the Benjamin Gate, a sentry arrested him and said, “You are defecting to the Babylonians!” The sentry making the arrest was Irijah son of Shelemiah, grandson of Hananiah.

¹⁴ “That’s not true!” Jeremiah protested. “I had no intention of doing any such thing.” But Irijah wouldn’t listen, and he took Jeremiah before the officials. ¹⁵ They were furious with Jeremiah and had him flogged and imprisoned in the house of Jonathan the secretary. Jonathan’s house had been converted into a prison. ¹⁶ Jeremiah was put into a dungeon cell, where he remained for many days.

¹⁷ Later King Zedekiah secretly requested that Jeremiah come to the palace, where the king asked him, “Do you have any messages from the Lord?”

“Yes, I do!” said Jeremiah. “You will be defeated by the king of Babylon.”

¹⁸ Then Jeremiah asked the king, “What crime have I committed? What have I done against you, your attendants, or the people that I should be imprisoned like this? ¹⁹ Where are your prophets now who told you the king of Babylon would not attack you or this land? ²⁰ Listen, my lord the king, I beg you. Don’t send me back to the dungeon in the house of Jonathan the secretary, for I will die there.”

²¹ So King Zedekiah commanded that Jeremiah not be returned to the dungeon. Instead, he was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace. The king also commanded that Jeremiah be given a loaf of fresh bread every day as long as there was any left in the city. So Jeremiah was put in the palace prison.