⁸ The word that came to Jeremiah from Adonai, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people that were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty to them, ⁹ so that everyone should let his manservant and his maidservant—Hebrew man or Hebrew woman—go free, so that no one should make a slave of a Jew, his brother. ¹⁰ So all the princes and all the people obeyed, who had entered into the covenant, that everyone would free his manservant and his maidservant and not make them slaves any more—they obeyed, and freed them. ¹¹ But afterward they turned around and made the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, return, and brought them back into subjection as servants and as handmaids.”

¹² So the word of Adonai came to Jeremiah from Adonai, saying, ¹³ thus says Adonai, the God of Israel: “I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying: ¹⁴ ‘At the end of seven years you are to set free every man his brother that is a Hebrew who has been sold to you and has served you six years; you are let him go free from you.’ But your fathers did not obey Me, nor inclined their ear. ¹⁵ Now you had repented, and had done that which is right in My eyes, by proclaiming liberty everyone to his neighbor. You even had made a covenant before Me in the House where My Name is called. ¹⁶ But you turned around and profaned My Name, and made everyone his servant and his handmaid, whom you had let go free at their will, return, and you brought them back into subjection, to be your servants and handmaids.”

¹⁷ Therefore thus says Adonai: “You have not obeyed Me, to proclaim liberty, everyone to his brother and everyone to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim for you a liberty,” declares Adonai, “to the sword, to plague and to famine! So I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸ I will give the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before Me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts ¹⁹ —the princes of Judah and the princes of Jerusalem, the officers, the kohanim, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf— ²⁰ I will even give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of them who seek their life, and their dead bodies will be for food to the birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth. ²¹ King Zedekiah of Judah and his princes I will give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of them who seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, who were withdrawing from you. ²² Indeed, I will command,” declares Adonai, “and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it, capture it, and burn it down with fire; and I will make the cities of Judah a wasteland, with no one living.”

²⁵ Thus says Adonai: “If I have not made My covenant of day and night firm, and the fixed patterns ordering the heavens and earth, ²⁶ only then would I reject the offspring of Jacob,^[a] and of My servant David so that I would not take from his offspring rulers over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore them from their exile, and have compassion on them.”