1. The Lord spoke to me in the tenth year that Zedekiah was king of Judah, which was also the eighteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia.
2. At that time the army of the king of Babylonia was attacking Jerusalem, and I was locked up in the courtyard of the royal palace.
3. King Zedekiah had imprisoned me there and had accused me of announcing that the Lord had said, “I am going to let the king of Babylonia capture this city,
4. and King Zedekiah will not escape. He will be handed over to the king of Babylonia; he will see him face to face and will speak to him in person.
5. Zedekiah will be taken to Babylonia, and he will remain there until I deal with him. Even if he fights the Babylonians, he will not be successful. I, the Lord, have spoken.”
6. The Lord told me
7. that Hanamel, my uncle Shallum's son, would come to me with the request to buy his field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin, because I was his nearest relative and had the right to buy it for myself.
8. Then, just as the Lord had said, Hanamel came to me there in the courtyard and asked me to buy the field. So I knew that the Lord had really spoken to me.
9. I bought the field from Hanamel and weighed out the money to him; the price came to seventeen pieces of silver.
10. I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the money on scales.
11. Then I took both copies of the deed of purchase — the sealed copy containing the contract and its conditions, and the open copy —
12. and gave them to Baruch, the son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah. I gave them to him in the presence of Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed of purchase and of the people who were sitting in the courtyard.
13. Before them all I said to Baruch,