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King Zedekiah Asks Jeremiah To Pray

37 (A) King Nebuchadnezzar[a] of Babylonia had removed Jehoiachin[b] son of Jehoiakim[c] from being the king of Judah and had made Josiah's[d] son Zedekiah[e] king instead.[f] But Zedekiah, his officials, and everyone else in Judah ignored everything the Lord had told me.

3-5 Later, the Babylonian army attacked Jerusalem, but they left after learning that the Egyptian army[g] was headed in this direction.

One day, Zedekiah sent Jehucal and the priest Zephaniah[h] to talk with me. At that time, I was free to go wherever I wanted, because I had not yet been put in prison. Jehucal and Zephaniah said, “Jeremiah, please pray to the Lord our God for us.”

6-7 Then the Lord told me to send them back to Zedekiah with this message:

Zedekiah, you wanted Jeremiah to ask me, the Lord God of Israel, what is going to happen. So I will tell you. The king of Egypt and his army came to your rescue, but soon they will go back to Egypt. Then the Babylonians will return and attack Jerusalem, and this time they will capture the city and set it on fire. Don't fool yourselves into thinking that the Babylonians will leave as they did before. 10 Even if you could defeat their entire army, their wounded survivors would still be able to leave their tents and set Jerusalem on fire.

Jeremiah Is Put in Prison

11 The Babylonian army had left because the Egyptian army was on its way to help us. 12 So I decided to leave Jerusalem and go to the territory of the Benjamin tribe to claim my share of my family's land. 13 I was leaving Jerusalem through Benjamin Gate, when I was stopped by Irijah,[i] the officer in charge of the soldiers at the gate. He said, “Jeremiah, you're under arrest for trying to join the Babylonians.”

14 “I'm not trying to join them!” I answered. But Irijah wouldn't listen, and he took me to the king's officials. 15-16 They were angry and ordered the soldiers to beat me. Then I was taken to the house that belonged to Jonathan, one of the king's officials. It had been turned into a prison, and I was kept in a basement room.

After I had spent a long time there, 17 King Zedekiah secretly had me brought to his palace, where he asked, “Is there any message for us from the Lord?”

“Yes, there is, Your Majesty,” I replied. “The Lord is going to let the king of Babylonia capture you.”

18 Then I continued, “Your Majesty, why have you put me in prison? Have I committed a crime against you or your officials or the nation? 19 Have you locked up the prophets who lied to you and said that the king of Babylonia would never attack Jerusalem? 20 Please, don't send me back to that prison at Jonathan's house. If you do, I will die there.”

21 King Zedekiah had me taken to the prison cells in the courtyard of the palace guards. He told the soldiers to give me a loaf of bread[j] from one of the bakeries every day until the city ran out of grain.

Jeremiah Is Held Prisoner in a Dry Well

38 One day, Shephatiah, Gedaliah, Jehucal,[k] and Pashhur[l] heard me tell the people of Judah 2-3 that the Lord had said, “If you stay here in Jerusalem, you will die in battle or from disease or hunger, and the Babylonian army will capture the city anyway. But if you surrender to the Babylonians, they will let you live.”

So the four of them went to the king and said, “You should put Jeremiah to death, because he is making the soldiers and everyone else lose hope. He isn't trying to help our people; he's trying to harm them.”

Zedekiah replied, “Do what you want with him. I can't stop you.”

Then they took me back to the courtyard of the palace guards and let me down with ropes into the well that belonged to Malchiah, the king's son. There was no water in the well, but I sank down in the mud.

7-8 Ebedmelech from Ethiopia[m] was an official at the palace, and he heard what they had done to me. So he went to speak with King Zedekiah, who was holding court at Benjamin Gate. Ebedmelech said, “Your Majesty, Jeremiah is a prophet, and those men were wrong to throw him into a well. And when Jerusalem runs out of food, Jeremiah will starve to death down there.”

10 Zedekiah answered, “Take 30[n] of my soldiers and pull Jeremiah out before he dies.”

11 Ebedmelech and the soldiers went to the palace and got some rags from the room under the treasury. He used ropes to lower them into the well. 12 Then he said, “Put these rags under your arms so the ropes won't hurt you.” After I did, 13 the men pulled me out. And from then on, I was kept in the courtyard of the palace guards.

King Zedekiah Questions Jeremiah

14 King Zedekiah[o] had me brought to his private entrance[p] to the temple, and he said, “I'm going to ask you something, and I want to know the truth.”

15 “Why?” I replied. “You won't listen, and you might even have me killed!”

16 He said, “I swear in the name of the living Lord our Creator that I won't have you killed. No one else can hear what we say, and I won't let anyone kill you.”

17 Then I told him that the Lord had said: “Zedekiah, I am the Lord God All-Powerful, the God of Israel. I promise that if you surrender to King Nebuchadnezzar's[q] officers, you and your family won't be killed, and Jerusalem won't be burned down. 18 But if you don't surrender, I will let the Babylonian army capture Jerusalem and burn it down, and you will be taken prisoner.”

19 Zedekiah answered, “I can't surrender to the Babylonians. I'm too afraid of the people of Judah who have already joined them. The Babylonians might hand me over to them, and they would torture me.”

20 I said, “If you will just obey the Lord, the Babylonians won't hand you over to those Jews. You will be allowed to live, and all will go well for you. 21 But the Lord has shown me that if you refuse to obey, 22 then the women of your palace will be taken prisoner by Nebuchadnezzar's officials. And those women will say to you:

Friends you trusted led you astray.
    Now you're trapped in mud,
and those friends you trusted
    have all turned away.

23 The Babylonian army will take your wives and children captive, you will be taken as a prisoner to the King of Babylonia, and Jerusalem will be burned down.”[r]

24 Zedekiah said, “Jeremiah, if you tell anyone what we have talked about, you might lose your life. 25 And I'm sure that if my officials hear about our meeting, they will ask you what we said to each other. They might even threaten to kill you if you don't tell them. 26 So if they question you, tell them you were begging me not to send you back to the prison at Jonathan's house, because going back there would kill you.”

27 The officials did come and question me about my meeting with the king, and I told them exactly what he had ordered me to say. They never spoke to me about the meeting again, since no one had heard us talking.

28 (B) I was held in the courtyard of the palace guards until the day Jerusalem was captured.

Footnotes

  1. 37.1 Nebuchadnezzar: See the note at 21.2.
  2. 37.1 Jehoiachin: Hebrew “Coniah” (see the note at 22.24).
  3. 37.1 Jehoiakim: See the note at 1.3.
  4. 37.1 Josiah's: Josiah was the father of both Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. Josiah ruled 640–609 b.c.
  5. 37.1 Zedekiah: See the note at 1.3.
  6. 37.1 King Nebuchadnezzar … instead: See 2 Kings 24.10-17.
  7. 37.3-5 Egyptian army: Led by King Apries, also known as Hophra.
  8. 37.3-5 Jehucal and the priest Zephaniah: Hebrew “Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah.”
  9. 37.13 Irijah: Hebrew “Irijah son of Shelemiah and grandson of Hananiah.”
  10. 37.21 a loaf of bread: Bread was the main food of the Israelites. During this time of emergency in Jerusalem, everyone probably received the same amount each day.
  11. 38.1 Jehucal: The Hebrew text has “Jucal,” another form of the name.
  12. 38.1 Shephatiah, Gedaliah, Jehucal, and Pashhur: Hebrew “Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jucal son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malchiah.”
  13. 38.7,8 Ethiopia: The Hebrew text has “Cush,” a region south of Egypt that included parts of the present countries of Ethiopia and Sudan.
  14. 38.10 30: Most Hebrew manuscripts; one Hebrew manuscript “three.”
  15. 38.14 Zedekiah: See the note at 1.3.
  16. 38.14 his private entrance: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
  17. 38.17 Nebuchadnezzar's: See the note at 21.2.
  18. 38.23 Jerusalem will be burned down: A few Hebrew manuscripts and three ancient translations; most Hebrew manuscripts “you will burn Jerusalem down”; one ancient translation “he will burn Jerusalem down.”

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