Jeremiah 38:14–39:14

Zedekiah Asks Jeremiah’s Advice

¹⁴On another occasion King Zedekiah had me brought to him at the third entrance to the Temple, and he said, “I am going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the whole truth.”

¹⁵I answered, “If I tell you the truth, you will put me to death, and if I give you advice, you won’t pay any attention.”

¹⁶So King Zedekiah promised me in secret, “I swear by the living God, the God who gave us life, that I will not put you to death or hand you over to the men who want to kill you.”

¹⁷Then I told Zedekiah that the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, had said, “If you surrender to the king of Babylonia’s officers, your life will be spared, and this city will not be burnt down. Both you and your family will be spared. ¹⁸But if you do not surrender, then this city will be handed over to the Babylonians, who will burn it down, and you will not escape from them.”

¹⁹But the king answered, “I am afraid of our countrymen who have deserted to the Babylonians. I may be handed over to them and tortured.”

²⁰I said, “You will not be handed over to them. I beg you to obey the Lord’s message; then all will go well with you, and your life will be spared. ²¹But the Lord has shown me in a vision what will happen if you refuse to surrender. ²²In it I saw all the women left in Judah’s royal palace being led out to the king of Babylonia’s officers. Listen to what they were saying as they went:

‘The king’s best friends misled him,

they overruled him.

And now that

his feet have sunk in the mud, his friends have left him.’ ”

²³Then I added, “All your women and children will be taken out to the Babylonians, and you yourself will not escape from them. You will be taken prisoner by the king of Babylonia, and this city will be burnt to the ground.”

²⁴Zedekiah replied, “Don’t let anyone know about this conversation, and your life will not be in danger. ²⁵If the officials hear that I have talked with you, they will come and ask you what we said. They will promise not to put you to death if you tell them everything. ²⁶Just tell them you were begging me not to send you back to prison to die there.” ²⁷Then all the officials came and questioned me, and I told them exactly what the king had told me to say. There was nothing else they could do, because no one had overheard the conversation. ^28*And I was kept in the palace courtyard until the day Jerusalem was captured.

The Fall of Jerusalem

39In the tenth month of the ninth year that Zedekiah was king of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia came with his whole army and attacked Jerusalem. ²On the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year as king, the city walls were broken through.

³(When Jerusalem was captured,^u all the high officials of the king of Babylonia came and took their places at the Middle Gate, including Nergal Sarezer, Samgar Nebo, Sarsechim, and another Nergal Sarezer.)^v

⁴When King Zedekiah and all his soldiers saw what was happening, they tried to escape from the city during the night. They left by way of the royal garden, went through the gateway connecting the two walls, and escaped in the direction of the Jordan Valley. ⁵But the Babylonian army pursued them and captured Zedekiah in the plains near Jericho. Then they took him to King Nebuchadnezzar, who was in the city of Riblah in the territory of Hamath, and there Nebuchadnezzar passed sentence on him. ⁶At Riblah he put Zedekiah’s sons to death while Zedekiah was looking on, and he also executed the officials of Judah. ⁷After that, he had Zedekiah’s eyes put out and had him placed in chains to be taken to Babylonia. ⁸Meanwhile, the Babylonians burnt down the royal palace and the houses of the people and tore down the walls of Jerusalem. ⁹Finally Nebuzaradan, the commanding officer, took away as prisoners to Babylonia the people who were left in the city, together with those who had deserted to him. ¹⁰He left in the land of Judah some of the poorest people, who owned no property, and he gave them vineyards and fields.

Jeremiah’s Release

¹¹But King Nebuchadnezzar commanded Nebuzaradan, the commanding officer, to give the following order: ¹²“Go and find Jeremiah and take good care of him. Do not harm him, but do for him whatever he wants.” ¹³So Nebuzaradan, together with the high officials Nebushazban and Nergal Sarezer and all the other officers of the king of Babylonia, ¹⁴brought me from the palace courtyard. They put me under the care of Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, who was to see that I got home safely. And so I stayed there among the people.