Jeremias 37

¹ And King Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had made king in the land of Judah.

² But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, gave heed to the Words of Jehovah which He spoke by the hand of the prophet Jeremiah.

³ And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now to Jehovah our God for us.

⁴ And Jeremiah came in and went out among the people, for they had not yet put him into prison.

⁵ And Pharaoh’s army had come out from Egypt. And when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news of them, they departed from Jerusalem.

⁶ Then the Word of Jehovah came unto the prophet Jeremiah, saying,

⁷ Thus says Jehovah the God of Israel: You shall say this to the king of Judah, who sent you to Me to inquire of Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land.

⁸ And the Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city, and capture it, and burn it with fire.

⁹ Thus says Jehovah: Do not deceive yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us. For they shall not depart.

¹⁰ For though you had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and there remained only wounded men among them, they would rise up, each man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.

¹¹ And it happened when the army of Chaldeans went up from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s army,

¹² that Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to claim his property there in the midst of the people.

¹³ And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a commander of the guard named Irijah was there, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah. And he seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, You are defecting to the Chaldeans.

¹⁴ Then Jeremiah said, False! I am not defecting to the Chaldeans. But he did not listen to him; so Irijah arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the rulers.

¹⁵ And the rulers were angry with Jeremiah, and struck him, and put him in prison, the house of Jonathan the scribe. For they had made that the prison.

¹⁶ When Jeremiah had entered into the dungeon and the cell, and Jeremiah had remained there many days,

¹⁷ then Zedekiah the king sent and took him out. And the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any Word from Jehovah? And Jeremiah said, There is. For, He said, you shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.

¹⁸ Moreover Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, What have I offended against you, or against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison?

¹⁹ Where now are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you nor against this land?

²⁰ Therefore please hear now, O my lord the king; I beg you, let my supplication fall before you, so that you not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.

²¹ And Zedekiah the king commanded that they should put Jeremiah into the court of the guard, and that they should give him a piece of bread out of the bakers’ street daily, until all the bread in the city was gone. Thus, Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.