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¹Now Zedekiah the son of Josiah whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had made king in the land of Judah, reigned as king in place of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim.

²But neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the LORD which He spoke through Jeremiah the prophet.

³Yet King Zedekiah sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and the priest Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “Please pray to the LORD our God in our behalf.”

⁴Now Jeremiah was still coming and going among the people, for they had not yet put him in prison.

⁵Meanwhile, Pharaoh’s army had set out from Egypt; and when the Chaldeans who had been besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.

⁶Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying,

⁷“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says: ‘This is what you are to say to the king of Judah, who sent you to Me to inquire of Me: “Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, is going to return to its own land of Egypt.

⁸Then the Chaldeans will return and fight against this city, and they will capture it and burn it with fire.” ’

⁹This is what the LORD says: ‘Do not deceive yourselves, saying, “The Chaldeans will certainly go away from us,” for they will not go.

¹⁰For even if you had defeated the entire army of Chaldeans who were fighting against you, and there were only wounded men left among them, each man in his tent, they would rise up and burn this city with fire.’ ”

¹¹Now it happened when the army of the Chaldeans had withdrawn from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s army,

¹²that Jeremiah left Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin in order to take possession of some property there among the people.

¹³While he was at the Gate of Benjamin, a captain of the guard whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah the son of Hananiah was there; and he arrested Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are deserting to the Chaldeans!”

¹⁴But Jeremiah said, “A lie! I am not deserting to the Chaldeans”; yet he would not listen to him. So Irijah arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials.

¹⁵Then the officials were angry at Jeremiah and they beat him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for they had made it into the prison.

¹⁶For Jeremiah had come into the dungeon, that is, the vaulted cell; and Jeremiah stayed there many days.

¹⁷Now King Zedekiah sent men and took him out; and in his palace the king secretly asked him and said, “Is there a word from the LORD?” And Jeremiah said, “There is!” Then he said, “You will be handed over to the king of Babylon!”

¹⁸Moreover, Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “In what way have I sinned against you, or your servants, or this people, that you have put me in prison?

¹⁹And where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, ‘The king of Babylon will not come against you or against this land’?

²⁰But now, please listen, my lord the king; please let my plea come before you and do not make me return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, so that I will not die there.”

²¹Then King Zedekiah gave a command, and they placed Jeremiah in custody in the courtyard of the guardhouse, and gave him a loaf of bread daily from the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guardhouse.

¹Now Shephatiah the son of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchijah heard the words that Jeremiah was speaking to all the people, saying,

²“This is what the LORD says: ‘Anyone who stays in this city will die by the sword, by famine, or by plague; but anyone who surrenders to the Chaldeans will live and have his own life as plunder, and stay alive.’

³This is what the LORD says: ‘This city will certainly be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon and he will capture it.’ ”

⁴Then the officials said to the king, “Please have this man put to death, since he is discouraging the men of war who are left in this city and all the people, by speaking words like these to them; for this man is not seeking the well-being of this people, but rather their harm.”

⁵And King Zedekiah said, “Behold, he is in your hands; for the king can do nothing against you.”

⁶So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malchijah the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guardhouse; and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. Now in the cistern there was no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud.

⁷But Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, while he was in the king’s palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the cistern. Now the king was sitting at the Gate of Benjamin;

⁸and Ebed-melech went out from the king’s palace and spoke to the king, saying,

⁹“My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet whom they have thrown into the cistern; and he will die right where he is because of the famine, for there is no more bread in the city.”

¹⁰Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, “Take thirty men from here under your authority and bring Jeremiah the prophet up from the cistern before he dies.”

¹¹So Ebed-melech took the men under his authority and went into the king’s palace to a place beneath the storeroom, and took from there worn-out clothes and worn-out rags, and let them down by ropes into the cistern to Jeremiah.

¹²Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, “Now put these worn-out clothes and rags under your armpits under the ropes”; and Jeremiah did so.

¹³So they pulled Jeremiah out with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern, and Jeremiah stayed in the courtyard of the guardhouse.

¹⁴Then King Zedekiah sent word and had Jeremiah the prophet brought to him at the third entrance that is in the house of the LORD; and the king said to Jeremiah, “I am going to ask you something; do not hide anything from me.”

¹⁵And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I tell you, will you not certainly put me to death? Besides, if I give you advice, you will not listen to me.”

¹⁶But King Zedekiah swore to Jeremiah in secret, saying, “As the LORD lives, who made this life for us, I certainly will not put you to death, nor will I hand you over to these men who are seeking your life.”

¹⁷So Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the LORD God of armies, the God of Israel says: ‘If you will indeed surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live, this city will not be burned with fire, and you and your household will survive.

¹⁸But if you do not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then this city will be handed over to the Chaldeans; and they will burn it with fire, and you yourself will not escape from their hands.’ ”

¹⁹Then King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am in fear of the Jews who have deserted to the Chaldeans, for they may hand me over to them, and they will abuse me.”

²⁰But Jeremiah said, “They will not turn you over. Please obey the LORD in what I am saying to you, so that it may go well for you and you may live.

²¹But if you keep refusing to surrender, this is the word which the LORD has shown me:

²²‘Behold, all of the women who have been left in the palace of the king of Judah are going to be brought out to the officers of the king of Babylon; and those women will say, “Your close friends Have misled and overpowered you; While your feet were sunk in the mire, They turned back.”

²³They are also going to bring out all your wives and your sons to the Chaldeans, and you yourself will not escape from their hand, but will be seized by the hand of the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned with fire.’ ”

²⁴Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no one know about these words, and you will not die.

²⁵But if the officials hear that I have talked with you and come to you and say to you, ‘Tell us now what you said to the king and what the king said to you; do not hide it from us and we will not put you to death,’

²⁶then you are to say to them, ‘I was presenting my plea before the king, not to make me return to the house of Jonathan to die there.’ ”

²⁷Then all the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him. So he reported to them in accordance with all these words which the king had commanded; and they stopped speaking with him, since the conversation had not been overheard.

²⁸So Jeremiah stayed in the courtyard of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was captured.

¹Now when Jerusalem was captured in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it;

²in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the city wall was breached.

³Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came in and sat down at the Middle Gate: Nergal-sar-ezer, Samgar-nebu, Sar-sekim the Rab-saris, Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.

⁴And when Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, they fled and left the city at night by way of the king’s garden through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah.

⁵But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and they took him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him.

⁶Then the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes at Riblah; the king of Babylon also slaughtered all the nobles of Judah.

⁷He then blinded Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in shackles of bronze to bring him to Babylon.

⁸The Chaldeans also burned the king’s palace and the houses of the people with fire, and they tore down the walls of Jerusalem.

⁹And as for the rest of the people who were left in the city, the deserters who had deserted to him and the rest of the people who remained, Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard took them into exile in Babylon.

¹⁰But some of the poorest people, who had nothing, Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard left behind in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at that time.

¹¹Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon gave orders regarding Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, saying,

¹²“Take him and look after him, and do not do anything harmful to him, but rather deal with him just as he tells you.”

¹³So Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard sent word, along with Nebushazban the Rab-saris, Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag, and all the leading officers of the king of Babylon;

¹⁴they even sent word and took Jeremiah out of the courtyard of the guardhouse and entrusted him to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him home. So he stayed among the people.

¹⁵Now the word of the LORD had come to Jeremiah while he was confined in the courtyard of the guardhouse, saying,

¹⁶“Go and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, ‘This is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I am going to bring My words on this city for disaster and not for prosperity; and they will take place before you on that day.

¹⁷But I will save you on that day,” declares the LORD, “and you will not be handed over to the men of whom you are afraid.

¹⁸For I will assuredly rescue you, and you will not fall by the sword; but you will have your own life as plunder, because you have trusted in Me,” declares the LORD.’ ”