Jeremiah 34:8-22

Freedom for Slaves

8 The word came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves.
9 Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage.
10 So all the officials and people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their male and female slaves and no longer hold them in bondage. They agreed, and set them free.
11 But afterward they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again.
12 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:
13 “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I said,
14 ‘Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you six years, you must let them go free.’[a] Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me.
15 Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to your own people. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name.
16 But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again.
17 “Therefore this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the LORD—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth.
18 Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces.
19 The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf,
20 I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.
21 “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them, to the army of the king of Babylon, which has withdrawn from you.
22 I am going to give the order, declares the LORD, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, take it and burn it down. And I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.”

Cross References 30

  • 1. S 2 Kings 11:17
  • 2. S Exodus 21:2; Lev 25:10,39-41; Nehemiah 5:5-8
  • 3. Deuteronomy 15:12-18; Leviticus 25:39-46
  • 4. Psalms 78:37
  • 5. S Exodus 24:8
  • 6. S Deuteronomy 15:15
  • 7. S Exodus 21:2
  • 8. Deuteronomy 15:12; 2 Kings 17:14; S Jeremiah 7:26
  • 9. ver 8
  • 10. S Jeremiah 7:10-11; Jeremiah 32:34
  • 11. Ezekiel 3:20; Ezekiel 18:24
  • 12. Exodus 20:7; S Leviticus 19:12
  • 13. S Matthew 7:2; Galatians 6:7
  • 14. Jeremiah 21:7
  • 15. S Jeremiah 14:12
  • 16. Deuteronomy 28:25,64; Jeremiah 15:4; S Jeremiah 24:9; S Jeremiah 29:18
  • 17. S Jeremiah 11:10
  • 18. S Genesis 15:10
  • 19. S Jeremiah 26:10; Zephaniah 3:3-4
  • 20. Jeremiah 21:7; Ezekiel 16:27; Ezekiel 23:28
  • 21. S Jeremiah 11:21
  • 22. S Deuteronomy 28:26; Jeremiah 7:33; Jeremiah 19:7
  • 23. S Jeremiah 32:4
  • 24. 2 Kings 25:21; Jeremiah 39:6; Jeremiah 52:24-27
  • 25. S Jeremiah 21:7
  • 26. S 2 Chronicles 36:10
  • 27. Jeremiah 37:5
  • 28. Jeremiah 39:1-2
  • 29. S Nehemiah 2:17; Jeremiah 38:18; Jeremiah 39:8; Ezekiel 23:47
  • 30. S Leviticus 26:32; S Isaiah 1:7

Footnotes 1

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