The Broken Promise. ⁸ This word came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to issue a proclamation of freedom for their slaves. ⁹ Everyone who had Hebrew slaves, whether male or female, was to grant them freedom, and no one would be allowed to keep a fellow Jew in the state of slavery.

¹⁰ All of the officials and the people who entered into this agreement, swearing that they would set free their male and female slaves so that they would not again be enslaved, obeyed and granted them their freedom.