¹⁴Then King Zedekiah sent someone to get Jeremiah the prophet and bring him to the third entrance to the Temple of the Lord. The king said to Jeremiah, “I am going to ask you something. Do not hide anything from me, but tell me everything honestly.”

¹⁵Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I give you an answer, you will surely kill me. And even if I give you advice, you will not listen to me.”

¹⁶But King Zedekiah made a secret promise to Jeremiah, “As surely as the Lord lives who has given us breath and life, I will not kill you. And I promise not to hand you over to the officers who want to kill you.”

¹⁷Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the Lord God All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be saved. Jerusalem will not be burned down, and you and your family will live. ¹⁸But if you refuse to surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, Jerusalem will be handed over to the Babylonian army, and they will burn it down. And you yourself will not escape from them.’ ”

¹⁹Then King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I’m afraid of some Jews who have already gone over to the side of the Babylonian army. If the Babylonians hand me over to them, they will treat me badly.”

²⁰But Jeremiah answered, “The Babylonians will not hand you over to the Jews. Obey the Lord by doing what I tell you. Then things will go well for you, and your life will be saved. ²¹But if you refuse to surrender to the Babylonians, the Lord has shown me what will happen. ²²All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out and taken to the important officers of the king of Babylon. Your women will make fun of you with this song:

‘Your good friends misled you

and were stronger than you.

While your feet were stuck in the mud,

they left you.’

²³“All your wives and children will be brought out and given to the Babylonian army. You yourself will not even escape from them. You will be taken prisoner by the king of Babylon, and Jerusalem will be burned down.”

²⁴Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Do not tell anyone that I have been talking to you, or you will die. ²⁵If the officers find out I talked to you, they will come to you and say, ‘Tell us what you said to King Zedekiah and what he said to you. Don’t keep any secrets from us. If you don’t tell us everything, we will kill you.’ ²⁶If they ask you, tell them, ‘I was begging the king not to send me back to Jonathan’s house to die.’ ”

²⁷All the officers did come to question Jeremiah. So he told them everything the king had ordered him to say. Then the officers said no more to Jeremiah, because no one had heard what Jeremiah and the king had discussed.

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

The Fall of Jerusalem

39This is how Jerusalem was captured: Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and surrounded the city to attack it. This was during the tenth month of the ninth year Zedekiah was king of Judah. ²This lasted until the ninth day of the fourth month in Zedekiah’s eleventh year. Then the city wall was broken through. ³And all these officers of the king of Babylon came into Jerusalem and sat down at the Middle Gate: Nergal-Sharezer of the district of Samgar; Nebo-Sarsekim, a chief officer; Nergal-Sharezer, an important leader; and all the other important officers.

⁴When Zedekiah king of Judah and all his soldiers saw them, they ran away. They left Jerusalem at night and went out from the king’s garden. They went through the gate that was between the two walls and then headed toward the Jordan Valley. ⁵But the Babylonian army chased them and caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They captured him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was at the town of Riblah in the land of Hamath. There Nebuchadnezzar passed his sentence on Zedekiah. ⁶At Riblah the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons and all the important officers of Judah as Zedekiah watched. ⁷Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes. He put bronze chains on Zedekiah and took him to Babylon.

⁸The Babylonians set fire to the palace and to the houses of the people, and they broke down the walls around Jerusalem. ⁹Nebuzaradan, commander of the king’s special guards, took the people left in Jerusalem, those captives who had surrendered to him earlier, and the rest of the people of Jerusalem, and he took them all away to Babylon. ¹⁰But Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard, left some of the poorest people of Judah behind. They owned nothing, but that day he gave them vineyards and fields.

¹¹Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had given these orders about Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard: ¹²“Find Jeremiah and take care of him. Do not hurt him, but do for him whatever he asks you.” ¹³So Nebuchadnezzar sent these men for Jeremiah: Nebuzaradan, commander of the guards; Nebushazban, a chief officer; Nergal-Sharezer, an important leader; and all the other officers of the king of Babylon. ¹⁴They had Jeremiah taken out of the courtyard of the guard. Then they turned him over to Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan, who had orders to take Jeremiah back home. So they took him home, and he stayed among the people left in Judah.

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