Jeremiah 34

A Message for Zedekiah

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, along with all his army, all the kingdoms of the earth, and all the peoples that were subject to him were fighting against Jerusalem and against all its cities.

⁶Jeremiah the prophet said all these things to Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem

⁷when the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against the cities of Judah that still remained, namely, Lachish and Azekah (for these alone remained from all of Judah's fortified cities).

⁸The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem proclaiming freedom for the slaves.

⁹Everyone was to free his Hebrew slaves, male and female. No one was to keep a fellow Jew in slavery.

¹⁰All the officials and all the people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would set their male and female slaves free, and that no one would keep them in slavery anymore. They obeyed the agreement and set them free.

¹¹But after this they changed their minds. They took back the slaves they had set free, and they made them serve as male and female slaves once again.

¹²It was after this that the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.