Jeremiah 34

¹ The word addressed to Jeremiah by Yahweh when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and his whole army, with all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion and all the peoples, were waging war on Jerusalem and its outlying towns,

² ‘Yahweh, the God of Israel, says this: Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah. Say this to him, “Yahweh says this: I am now handing over this city into the power of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down.

³ And you yourself will not escape his power but will inevitably be captured and delivered into his hands. You will see the king of Babylon face to face and speak to him personally. Then you will go to Babylon.

⁴ Even so, listen to the word of Yahweh, Zedekiah king of Judah, and you will not die by the sword;

⁵ you will die in peace. And as spices were burnt for your fathers, the kings who in times past preceded you, so they will also burn spices for you and raise this dirge for you: Mourn for his highness! I myself declare it – it is Yahweh who speaks.”‘

⁶ The prophet Jeremiah repeated all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah, in Jerusalem,

⁷ while the army of the king of Babylon was attacking Jerusalem and the towns of Judah which still held out, namely Lachish and Azekah, these being the only towns of Judah that still held out, since they were fortified.

⁸ The word addressed to Jeremiah by Yahweh after King Zedekiah had made a pact with all the people in Jerusalem to free their slaves:

⁹ each man was to free his Hebrew slaves, men and women, and no one was any longer to keep a brother Jew in slavery.

¹⁰ All the nobles and all the people who had entered into the pact had agreed that everyone should free his slaves, men or women, and no longer keep them as slaves: they had agreed on this and set them free.

¹¹ Afterwards, however, they changed their minds, recovered the slaves, men and women, whom they had set free, and reduced them to slavery again.

¹² So the word of Yahweh was addressed to Jeremiah,

¹³ ‘Yahweh, the God of Israel, says this: I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; it said:

¹⁴ At the end of seven years each one of you is to free his brother Hebrew who has sold himself to you: he may be your slave for six years, then you must send him away free. But your ancestors did not listen to me and would not pay attention.

¹⁵ Now, today you took a different attitude and did what pleases me by proclaiming freedom for your neighbour; you made a covenant in my presence in the Temple that bears my name.

¹⁶ And then you changed your mind and, profaning my name, each of you has recovered his slaves, men and women, whom you had sent away free to live their own lives, and has forced them to become your slaves again.

¹⁷ ‘Therefore – Yahweh says this: You have disobeyed me, by not each granting freedom to his brother and his neighbour. Very well, I in my turn – it is Yahweh who speaks – leave sword, famine and plague free to deal with you; I will make you an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

¹⁸ And these men who have infringed my covenant, who have not observed the terms of the covenant made in my presence, I will treat these men like the calf they cut in two to pass between the parts of it.[*a]

¹⁹ As for the nobles of Judah and of Jerusalem, the eunuchs and the priests, and all the people of the country who have passed between the parts of the calf,

²⁰ I will put them into the power of their enemies and into the power of men determined to kill them: their corpses will feed the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth.

²¹ As for Zedekiah king of Judah and his nobles, these too I will hand over to their enemies and to men determined to kill them, and to the army of the king of Babylon which has just withdrawn.

²² Listen, I will give the order – it is Yahweh who speaks – and bring them back to this city to attack it and capture it and burn it down. I am going to make an uninhabited desert of the towns of Judah.’