Jeremiah 34
34
Jeremiah Warns Zedekiah
1 #
2 K 25.1-11; 2 Ch 36.17-21. King Nebuchadnezzar#34.1 Nebuchadnezzar: See the note at 21.2. had a large army made up of people from every kingdom in his empire. He and his army were attacking Jerusalem and all the nearby towns, when the Lord told me 2to say to King Zedekiah:#34.2 Zedekiah: See the note at 1.3.
I am the Lord, and I am going to let Nebuchadnezzar capture this city and burn it down. 3You will be taken prisoner and brought to Nebuchadnezzar, and he will speak with you face to face. Then you will be led away to Babylonia.
4Zedekiah, I promise that you won't die in battle. 5You will die a peaceful death. People will mourn when you die, and they will light bonfires in your honor, just as they did for your ancestors, the kings who ruled before you.
6I went to Zedekiah and told him what the Lord had said. 7Meanwhile, the king of Babylonia was trying to break through the walls of Lachish, Azekah, and Jerusalem, the only three towns of Judah that had not been captured.
The People Break a Promise
8-10King Zedekiah,#34.8-10 Zedekiah: See the note at 1.3. his officials, and everyone else in Jerusalem made an agreement to free all Hebrew#34.8-10 Hebrew: An earlier term for Israelite and Jewish. men and women who were slaves. No Jew would keep another as a slave. And so, all the Jewish slaves were given their freedom.
11But those slave owners changed their minds and forced their former slaves back into slavery.
12That's when the Lord told me to say to the people:
13I am the Lord God of Israel, and I made an agreement with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, where they had been slaves. 14#Ex 21.2; Dt 15.12. As part of this agreement, you must let a Hebrew slave go free after six years of service.
Your ancestors did not obey me, 15-16but you decided to obey me and do the right thing by setting your Hebrew slaves completely free. You even went to my temple, and in my name you made an agreement to set them free. But you have abused my name, because you broke that agreement and forced your former slaves back into slavery.
17You have disobeyed me by not giving your slaves their freedom. So I will give you freedom—the freedom to die in battle or from disease or hunger. I will make you disgusting to all other nations on earth.
18You asked me to be a witness when you made the agreement to set your slaves free. And as part of the ceremony you cut a calf into two parts, then walked between the parts. But you people of Jerusalem have broken that agreement as well as my agreement with Israel. So I will do to you what you did to that calf. 19-20I will let your enemies take all of you prisoner, including the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the royal officials, the priests, and everyone else who walked between the two parts of the calf. These enemies will kill you and leave your bodies lying on the ground as food for birds and wild animals.
21-22These enemies are King Nebuchadnezzar#34.21,22 Nebuchadnezzar: See the note at 21.2. of Babylonia and his army. They have stopped attacking Jerusalem, but they want to kill King Zedekiah and his high officials. So I will command them to return and attack again. This time they will conquer the city and burn it down, and they will capture Zedekiah and his officials. I will also let them destroy the towns of Judah, so that no one can live there any longer.
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Jeremiah 34
34
1 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 under his dominion and all the people were fighting against Jerusalem and all of its cities:
2 Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him, Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving 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 but will surely be taken and delivered into his hand; you will see the king of Babylon eye to eye, and he will speak with you face to face; and you will go to Babylon.
4 Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah! Thus says the Lord concerning you: You shall not die by the sword;
5 But you shall die in peace. And as with the burnings of [spices and perfumes on wood that were granted as suitable for and in honor of] your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so shall a burning be made for you; and [people] shall lament for you, saying, Alas, lord! For I have spoken the word, says 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, against Lachish and Azekah, for these were the only fortified cities remaining of the cities of Judah.
8 [This is] the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to them:
9 Every man should let his Hebrew slaves, male and female, go free, so that no one should make a slave of a Jew, his brother.
10 And all the princes and all the people obeyed, who had entered into the covenant that everyone would let his manservant and his maidservant go free, so that none should make bondmen of them any more; they obeyed, and let them go.
11 But afterward they turned around and caused the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free to return [to their former masters] and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.
12 Therefore the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
13 Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying,
14 At the end of seven years you shall let every man his brother who is a Hebrew go free who has sold himself or has been sold to you and has served you six years; but your fathers did not listen to and obey Me or incline their ear [submitting and consenting to Me]. [Deut. 15:12.]
15 And you recently turned around and repented, doing what was right in My sight by proclaiming liberty each one to his neighbor [who was his bond servant]; and you made a covenant or pledge before Me in the house which is called by My Name.
16 But then you turned around and defiled My name; each of you caused to return to you your servants, male and female, whom you had set free as they might desire; and you brought them into subjection again to be your slaves.
17 Therefore thus says the Lord: You have not listened to Me and obeyed Me in proclaiming liberty each one to his brother and neighbor. Behold, I proclaim to you liberty–to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine, says the Lord; and I will make you to be tossed to and fro and to be a horror among all the kingdoms of the earth!
18 And the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not kept the terms of the covenant or solemn pledge which they had made before Me, I will make them [like] the [sacrificial] calf which they cut in two and then passed between its separated parts [solemnizing their pledge to Me]–I will make those men the calf! [Gen. 15:9, 10, 17.]
19 The princes of Judah, the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, 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 seek their life. And their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the earth.
21 And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hands of their enemies and into the hands of those who seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon's army which has withdrawn from you.
22 Behold, I will command, says the Lord, and cause them [the Chaldeans] to return to this city; and they shall fight against it and take it and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.
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