Jeremiah 37

Jeremiah in Prison

37Zedekiah^p son of Josiah was made king^q of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he reigned in place of Jehoiachin^ar son of Jehoiakim. ²Neither he nor his attendants nor the people of the land paid any attention^s to the words the Lord had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.

³King Zedekiah, however, sent^t Jehukal^u son of Shelemiah with the priest Zephaniah^v son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah the prophet with this message: “Please pray^w to the Lord our God for us.”

⁴Now Jeremiah was free to come and go among the people, for he had not yet been put in prison.^{x 5}Pharaoh’s army had marched out of Egypt,^y and when the Babylonians^b who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they withdrew^z from Jerusalem.^a

⁶Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet: ⁷“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire^b of me, ‘Pharaoh’s army, which has marched^c out to support you, will go back to its own land, to Egypt.^{d 8}Then the Babylonians will return and attack this city; they will capture^e it and burn^f it down.’

⁹“This is what the Lord says: Do not deceive^g yourselves, thinking, ‘The Babylonians will surely leave us.’ They will not! ¹⁰Even if you were to defeat the entire Babylonian^c army that is attacking you and only wounded men were left in their tents, they would come out and burn^h this city down.”

¹¹After the Babylonian army had withdrawnⁱ from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s army, ¹²Jeremiah started to leave the city to go to the territory of Benjamin to get his share of the property^j among the people there. ¹³But when he reached the Benjamin Gate,^k the captain of the guard, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, arrested him and said, “You are deserting to the Babylonians!”^l

¹⁴“That’s not true!” Jeremiah said. “I am not deserting to the Babylonians.” But Irijah would not listen to him; instead, he arrested^m Jeremiah and brought him to the officials. ¹⁵They were angry with Jeremiah and had him beatenⁿ and imprisoned^o in the house^p of Jonathan the secretary, which they had made into a prison.

¹⁶Jeremiah was put into a vaulted cell in a dungeon, where he remained a long time. ¹⁷Then King Zedekiah sent^q for him and had him brought to the palace, where he asked^r him privately,^s “Is there any word from the Lord?”

“Yes,” Jeremiah replied, “you will be delivered^t into the hands of the king of Babylon.”

¹⁸Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “What crime^u have I committed against you or your attendants or this people, that you have put me in prison? ¹⁹Where are your prophets^v who prophesied to you, ‘The king of Babylon will not attack you or this land’? ²⁰But now, my lord the king, please listen. Let me bring my petition before you: Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, or I will die there.”^w

²¹King Zedekiah then gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard and given a loaf of bread from the street of the bakers each day until all the bread^x in the city was gone.^y So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.^z