Jeremiah 34:8-22

YAHWEH spoke to Jeremiah after King Zedekiah had made an agreement with the people of Jerusalem to set free all the Jewish slaves. Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, men and women, and no longer enslave a fellow Jew. All the leaders and all the people made an agreement that everyone should free their slaves, men or women, and no longer keep them enslaved, so they set every slave free. But afterward, they went back on their word and forced the men and women whom they had set free back into slavery. Then YAHWEH spoke to Jeremiah, saying, “I, YAHWEH, God of Israel, made a covenant with your ancestors when I led them out of the house of bondage in Egypt. I said that every seventh year, each one of you is to free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. They may be your slave for six years, then you must give them their freedom. Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me and would not obey. You recently decided to obey me and did what pleases me by setting your Hebrew slaves completely free. You even went to the temple dedicated to me, and in my name, you made a covenant to set them free. But now you have broken your promise and dishonored my name by forcing your former slaves back into slavery. From those whom you once set free to live as they please, you have taken their freedom away again to please yourselves. “So, I, YAHWEH, say you have disobeyed me by failing to grant freedom to your fellow Jews. Very well then. I, YAHWEH, declare that I will give you freedom—the freedom to die by the sword, disease, and starvation. And I will make you a disgusting sight to every nation in the world. The officials of Judah and of Jerusalem, together with the palace officials, the priests, and all the leaders, made a covenant with me. And to seal their agreement to set their slaves free, they walked between the two halves of a calf that they had cut in two. But they broke the covenant and did not fulfill its terms. So, I will do to these people what they did to the calf. I will hand them over to their enemies, to those determined to kill them. And their dead bodies will be food for the birds and beasts. These enemies are the king of Babylon and his army. They have stopped attacking Jerusalem for now, but they still want to kill King Zedekiah of Judah and his officials. So, I will command them to return and attack again. This time they will conquer the city and burn it to the ground. I will hand over King Zedekiah and all his officials. I will also turn the towns of Judah into an inhabitable wasteland.”