²⁴ Then Zedekiah told Jeremiah, “Don’t let anyone know about these words and you won’t die. ²⁵ If the officials hear that I’ve spoken with you, and they come to you and say,^[a] ‘Tell us what you told the king, and what the king told you; don’t hide it from us, and we won’t put you to death,’ ²⁶ then you are to say to them, ‘I was presenting my request to the king that I not be taken back to the house of Jonathan to die there.’”

²⁷ When all the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him, he replied to them exactly as the king had ordered him.^[b] So they stopped speaking with him because the conversation had not been overheard.