5. You shall die in peace. And as spices were burned for your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so people shall burn spices for you and lament for you, saying, “Alas, lord!”’ For I have spoken the word, declares the Lord.”
6. Then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah, in Jerusalem,
7. when the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that were left, Lachish and Azekah, for these were the only fortified cities of Judah that remained.
8. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them,
9. that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother.
10. And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that everyone would set free his slave, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again. They obeyed and set them free.
11. But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free, and brought them into subjection as slaves.
12. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord: