Zedekiah to Die in Babylon

34 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when ^(A)Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army ^(B)and all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion and all the peoples were fighting against Jerusalem and all of its cities: ² “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Go and speak to ^(C)Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: ^(D)Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. ^3 (E)You shall not escape from his hand but shall surely be captured and delivered into his hand. ^(F)You shall see the king of Babylon eye to eye and speak with him face to face. And you shall go to Babylon.’ ⁴ Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah! ^(G)Thus says the Lord concerning you: ^(H)‘You shall not die by the sword. ⁵ You shall die in peace. ^(I)And as spices were burned for your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so people shall ^(J)burn spices for you ^(K)and lament for you, saying, “Alas, lord!”’ For I have spoken the word, declares the Lord.”

⁶ Then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah, in Jerusalem, ⁷ when the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that were left, ^(L)Lachish and ^(M)Azekah, ^(N)for these were the only ^(O)fortified cities of Judah that remained.

⁸ The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah ^(P)had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem ^(Q)to make a proclamation of liberty to them, ^9 (R)that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, ^(S)so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother. ¹⁰ And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that everyone would set free his slave, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again. They obeyed and set them free. ¹¹ But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves ^(T)they had set free, and brought them into subjection as slaves. ¹² The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ¹³ “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I myself made a covenant with your fathers when ^(U)I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying, ^14 (V)‘At the end of seven years each of you must set free the fellow Hebrew who has been sold to you and has served you six years; ^(W)you must set him free from your service.’ But ^(X)your fathers did not listen to me or incline their ears to me. ¹⁵ You recently repented and did what was right in my eyes ^(Y)by proclaiming liberty, each to his neighbor, and ^(Z)you made a covenant before me in the ^(AA)house that is called by my name, ¹⁶ but then you turned around ^(AB)and profaned my name when each of you took back his male and female slaves, ^(AC)whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your slaves.

¹⁷ “Therefore, thus says the Lord: You have not obeyed me ^(AD)by proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and to his neighbor; ^(AE)behold, I proclaim to you liberty ^(AF)to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine, declares the Lord. ^(AG)I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸ And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of ^(AH)the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like^{[a] (AI)}the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts— ¹⁹ the officials of Judah, the officials of Jerusalem, ^(AJ)the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf. ²⁰ And I will give them into the hand of their enemies ^(AK)and into the hand of those who seek their lives. ^(AL)Their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. ²¹ And ^(AM)Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials I will give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives, into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon ^(AN)which has withdrawn from you. ²² Behold, ^(AO)I will command, declares the Lord, and will ^(AP)bring them back to this city. ^(AQ)And they will fight against it and take it and burn it with fire. ^(AR)I will make the cities of Judah a desolation ^(AS)without inhabitant.”

Greeting

1 Paul, ^(A)an apostle of Christ Jesus ^(B)by the will of God, and ^(C)Timothy our brother,

To the church of God that is at Corinth, ^(D)with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:

^2 (E)Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

God of All Comfort

^3 (F)Blessed be the ^(G)God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and ^(H)God of all comfort, ^4 (I)who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For as we share abundantly in ^(J)Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.^{[a] 6 (K)}If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. ⁷ Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you ^(L)share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

⁸ For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers,^[b] of ^(M)the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. ⁹ Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us ^(N)rely not on ourselves ^(O)but on God ^(P)who raises the dead. ^10 (Q)He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. ^(R)On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. ^11 (S)You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf ^(T)for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

Paul's Change of Plans

¹² For our boast is this, ^(U)the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity^[c] and ^(V)godly sincerity, ^(W)not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. ¹³ For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand and I hope you will fully understand— ¹⁴ just as you did ^(X)partially understand us—that ^(Y)on the day of our Lord Jesus ^(Z)you will boast of us as ^(AA)we will boast of you.

¹⁵ Because I was sure of this, ^(AB)I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have ^(AC)a second ^(AD)experience of grace. ¹⁶ I wanted to visit you ^(AE)on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea. ¹⁷ Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans ^(AF)according to the flesh, ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time? ¹⁸ As surely as ^(AG)God is faithful, ^(AH)our word to you has not been Yes and No. ¹⁹ For ^(AI)the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, ^(AJ)Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but ^(AK)in him it is always Yes. ²⁰ For ^(AL)all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our ^(AM)Amen to God for his glory. ²¹ And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and ^(AN)has anointed us, ²² and who has also ^(AO)put his seal on us and ^(AP)given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.^[d]

²³ But ^(AQ)I call God to witness against me—it was ^(AR)to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth. ²⁴ Not that we ^(AS)lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm ^(AT)in your faith.

2 For I made up my mind ^(AU)not to make another painful visit to you. ² For ^(AV)if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained? ³ And I wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, ^(AW)for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all. ⁴ For ^(AX)I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

Forgive the Sinner

⁵ Now ^(AY)if anyone has caused pain, ^(AZ)he has caused it not to me, but ^(BA)in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you. ⁶ For such a one, ^(BB)this punishment by the majority is enough, ⁷ so ^(BC)you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. ⁸ So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. ⁹ For this is why I wrote, that I might ^(BD)test you and know ^(BE)whether you are obedient in everything. ¹⁰ Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, ¹¹ so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for ^(BF)we are not ignorant of his designs.