Jeremiah 38:14-28

¹⁴Then King Zedekiah sent word and had Jeremiah the prophet brought to him at the third entrance that is in the house of the Lord; and the king said to Jeremiah, “I am going to ask you something; do not hide anything from me.” ¹⁵And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I tell you, will you not certainly put me to death? Besides, if I give you advice, you will not listen to me.” ¹⁶But King Zedekiah swore to Jeremiah in secret, saying, “As the Lord lives, who made this life for us, I certainly will not put you to death, nor will I hand you over to these men who are seeking your life.”

¹⁷So Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the Lord God of armies, the God of Israel says: ‘If you will indeed surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live, this city will not be burned with fire, and you and your household will survive. ¹⁸But if you do not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then this city will be handed over to the Chaldeans; and they will burn it with fire, and you yourself will not escape from their hands.’ ” ¹⁹Then King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am in fear of the Jews who have deserted to the Chaldeans, for they may hand me over to them, and they will abuse me.” ²⁰But Jeremiah said, “They will not turn you over. Please obey the Lord in what I am saying to you, so that it may go well for you and you may live. ²¹But if you keep refusing to surrender, this is the word which the Lord has shown me: ²²‘Behold, all of the women who have been left in the palace of the king of Judah are going to be brought out to the officers of the king of Babylon; and those women will say,

“Your close friends

Have misled and overpowered you;

While your feet were sunk in the mire,

They turned back.”

²³They are also going to bring out all your wives and your sons to the Chaldeans, and you yourself will not escape from their hand, but will be seized by the hand of the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned with fire.’ ”

²⁴Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no one know about these words, and you will not die. ²⁵But if the officials hear that I have talked with you and come to you and say to you, ‘Tell us now what you said to the king and what the king said to you; do not hide it from us and we will not put you to death,’ ²⁶then you are to say to them, ‘I was presenting my plea before the king, not to make me return to the house of Jonathan to die there.’ ” ²⁷Then all the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him. So he reported to them in accordance with all these words which the king had commanded; and they stopped speaking with him, since the conversation had not been overheard. ²⁸So Jeremiah stayed in the courtyard of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was captured.