³King Zedekiah sent Jehucal (son of Shelemiah) and the priest Zephaniah (son of Maaseiah) to the prophet Jeremiah. They asked him, “Please pray to the Lord our God for us.”

⁴Jeremiah was still free to come and go among the people. The people of Jerusalem hadn’t put him in prison yet. ⁵Pharaoh’s army had come from Egypt, and when the Babylonians who were blockading Jerusalem heard this news, they retreated from Jerusalem.

⁶The Lord spoke his word to the prophet Jeremiah. He said, ⁷“This is what the Lord God of Israel says: Say this to the king of Judah, who sent you to get advice from me: ‘Pharaoh’s army has come out to help you. But it will go back to Egypt, its own land. ⁸Then the Babylonians will return. They will attack the city, capture it, and burn it down.

⁹“ ‘This is what the Lord says: Don’t deceive yourselves by thinking that the Babylonians will leave you. They will not leave you. ¹⁰Even if you would defeat the entire Babylonian army so that they had only a few badly wounded men left in their tents, they would get up and burn down this city.’ ”

Read in Logos