1This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth that were under his rule, and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and against all its cities. He said:
2"This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, 'This is what the LORD says: Look, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire."
3"'And you will not escape out of his hand. You will surely be captured and handed over to him. Your eyes will see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he will speak with you face to face, and you will go to Babylon."
4"'Yet hear the word of the LORD, Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what the LORD says about you: You will not die by the sword."
5"'You will die in peace. As spices were burned for your fathers, the kings who were before you, so they will burn spices for you. They will mourn for you and cry, Ah lord! For I have spoken the word, says the LORD.'"
7At that time the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish and against Azekah. These were the only walled cities left of the cities of Judah.
8This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem, to proclaim freedom to the slaves.
9Every man was to let his manservant and his maidservant go free, if they were Hebrew men or Hebrew women. No one was to keep a Jew, his brother, as a slave.
10So all the princes and all the people who had entered into the covenant heard that every man must let his manservant and his maidservant go free, and that no one should keep them as slaves any more. They obeyed, and let them go.
11But afterwards they changed their minds. They took back the menservants and the maidservants whom they had set free, and forced them into slavery again as menservants and maidservants.
12So the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
13"This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your fathers on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves. I said,"
14"'At the end of seven years each of you must let go his brother, a Hebrew, who has been sold to you. When he has served you six years, you must let him go free.' But your fathers did not listen to me, and did not turn their ear to me."
15"Now you had turned back and done what is right in my sight, by proclaiming freedom, every man to his neighbour. You had made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name."
16"But you turned back and made my name unclean. Each of you took back his manservant and his maidservant, whom you had set free to go where they pleased, and you forced them into slavery again, to be your menservants and maidservants."
17"Therefore this is what the LORD says: You have not listened to me, to proclaim freedom, every one to his brother and every man to his neighbour. So look, I proclaim a freedom for you, says the LORD - freedom to the sword, to the plague, and to the famine. And I will make you driven away into all the kingdoms of the earth."
18"And the men who have broken my covenant, who have not kept the words of the covenant they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and walked between its parts -"
19"the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the officers, and the priests, and all the people of the land, who walked between the parts of the calf -"
20"I will hand them over to their enemies, and to those who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth."
21"And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes I will hand over to their enemies, and to those who want to kill them, and to the army of the king of Babylon, which has gone away from you."
22"Look, I will give the command, says the LORD, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire. And I will make the cities of Judah a waste, with no one living in them."