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But give ear to the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah, king of Judah; this is what the Lord has said about you: Death will not come to you by the sword:
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You will come to your end in peace; and such burnings as they made for your fathers, the earlier kings before you, will be made for you; and they will be weeping for you and saying, Ah lord! for I have said the word, says the Lord.
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Then Jeremiah the prophet said all these things to Zedekiah, king of Judah, in Jerusalem,
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When the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the towns of Judah which had not been taken, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these were the last of the walled towns of Judah.
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The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made an agreement with all the people in Jerusalem, to give news in public that servants were to be made free;
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That every man was to let his Hebrew man-servant and his Hebrew servant-girl go free; so that no one might make use of a Jew, his countryman, as a servant:
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And this was done by all the rulers and the people who had taken part in the agreement, and every one let his man-servant and his servant-girl go free, not to be used as servants any longer; they did so, and let them go.
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But later, they took back again the servants and the servant-girls whom they had let go free, and put them again under the yoke as servants and servant-girls.
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For this reason the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
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The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, I made an agreement with your fathers on the day when I took them out of Egypt, out of the prison-house, saying,
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At the end of seven years every man is to let go his countryman who is a Hebrew, who has become yours for a price and has been your servant for six years; you are to let him go free: but your fathers gave no attention and did not give ear.