Our Father Speaks to Zedekiah
34 1 The word that came to Jeremiah from our Father, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion and all the peoples were fighting against Jerusalem and all its cities, saying:
2 Thus says our Father of Israel: Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, Thus says our Father: See, I am handing this city over to the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire. 3 And you will not escape from his hand, for you will surely be captured and given into his hand. You will come face to face with the king of Babylon, and he will speak with you in person, and you will go to Babylon.
4 Yet hear the word of your Father, Zedekiah, king of Judah. Thus says our Father concerning you: You will not die by the sword. 5 You will die in peace, and just as they burned spices for your fathers — the kings who came before you — so they will burn spices for you. They will lament for you, 'Alas, lord!' For it is I who have spoken the word, declares your Father.
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 — against Lachish and against Azekah; for these were the only fortified cities of Judah still standing.
The Father Judges a Broken Covenant
8 The word that came to Jeremiah from our Father after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to them: 9 that each should set free his Hebrew male slave and his Hebrew female slave, so that no one should hold his fellow Judahite, his brother, in bondage. 10 And all the officials and all the people who had entered the covenant obeyed, that each would set free his male slave and his female slave and no longer hold them in bondage; they obeyed and set them free. 11 But afterward they turned back and took back the male and female slaves whom they had set free, and forced them back into slavery.
12 Then the word of our Father came to Jeremiah, saying:
13 Thus says our Father of Israel: I myself made a covenant with your fathers on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying: 14 At the end of seven years each of you shall set free his Hebrew brother who has been sold to you and has served you six years; you shall set him free from you. But your fathers did not listen to me or pay any attention. 15 You recently turned and did what is right in my eyes, each proclaiming liberty to his neighbor, and you made a covenant before me in the house that bears my name. 16 But you turned back and profaned my name, and each took back his male slave and his female slave whom you had set free to go where they wished, and you forced them back into slavery as your slaves.
17 Therefore thus says our Father: You have not obeyed me to proclaim liberty, each to his brother and to his neighbor. I now proclaim to you liberty — declares your Father — liberty to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 18 And I will give the men who broke my covenant, who did not keep the words of the covenant they made before me, like the calf they cut in two and passed between its parts a a v18 In ancient covenant ceremonies, the parties walked between the halves of a slaughtered animal, invoking that same fate on themselves if they broke the agreement. 19 —the officials of Judah and the officials of Jerusalem, the court officials and the priests and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf 20 —I will give them into the hands of their enemies and into the hands of those who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. 21 And Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials I will give into the hands of their enemies, into the hands of those who want to kill them, and into the hands of the army of the king of Babylon that has withdrawn from you. 22 I am giving the command, declares your Father, and I will bring them back to this city; and they will fight against it and capture it and burn it with fire. And I will make the cities of Judah a wasteland with no one left to live there.