Jeremiah 38:14–39:14

Zedekiah Questions Jeremiah Again

¹⁴Then King Zedekiah sent^v for Jeremiah the prophet and had him brought to the third entrance to the temple of the Lord. “I am going to ask you something,” the king said to Jeremiah. “Do not hide^w anything from me.”

¹⁵Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.”

¹⁶But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly^x to Jeremiah: “As surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath,^y I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who want to kill you.”^z

¹⁷Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender^a to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live.^{b 18}But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be given into the hands^c of the Babylonians and they will burn^d it down; you yourself will not escape^e from them.’ ”

¹⁹King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid^f of the Jews who have gone over^g to the Babylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me.”

²⁰“They will not hand you over,” Jeremiah replied. “Obey^h the Lord by doing what I tell you. Then it will go wellⁱ with you, and your life^j will be spared. ²¹But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me: ²²All the women^k left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon. Those women will say to you:

“ ‘They misled you and overcame you—

those trusted friends^l of yours.

Your feet are sunk in the mud;^m

your friends have deserted you.’

²³“All your wives and childrenⁿ will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape^o from their hands but will be captured^p by the king of Babylon; and this city will^e be burned down.”^q

²⁴Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone know^r about this conversation, or you may die. ²⁵If the officials hear that I talked with you, and they come to you and say, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; do not hide it from us or we will kill you,’ ²⁶then tell^s them, ‘I was pleading with the king not to send me back to Jonathan’s house^t to die there.’ ”

²⁷All the officials did come to Jeremiah and question him, and he told them everything the king had ordered him to say. So they said no more to him, for no one had heard his conversation with the king.

²⁸And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard^u until the day Jerusalem was captured.

The Fall of Jerusalem

39:1–10pp—2Ki 25:1–12; Jer 52:4–16

This is how Jerusalem^v was taken:

39In the ninth year of Zedekiah^w king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar^x king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege^y to it. ²And on the ninth day of the fourth^z month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city wall^a was broken through.^{b 3}Then all the officials^c of the king of Babylon came and took seats in the Middle Gate: Nergal-Sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-Sarsekim a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officials of the king of Babylon. ⁴When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled; they left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls,^d and headed toward the Arabah.^ae

⁵But the Babylonian^b army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah^f in the plains of Jericho. They captured^g him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah^h in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced sentence on him. ⁶There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed all the noblesⁱ of Judah. ⁷Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes^j and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.^k

⁸The Babylonians^c set fire^l to the royal palace and the houses of the people and broke down the walls^m of Jerusalem. ⁹Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard carried into exile to Babylon the people who remained in the city, along with those who had gone over to him,ⁿ and the rest of the people.^{o 10}But Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing; and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.

¹¹Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had given these orders about Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard: ¹²“Take him and look after him; don’t harm^p him but do for him whatever he asks.” ¹³So Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard, Nebushazban a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officers^q of the king of Babylon ¹⁴sent and had Jeremiah taken out of the courtyard of the guard.^r They turned him over to Gedaliah^s son of Ahikam,^t the son of Shaphan,^u to take him back to his home. So he remained among his own people.^v