5. The Babylonian army had been besieging Jerusalem, but when they heard that the Egyptian army had crossed the Egyptian border, they retreated.
6. Then the Lord, the God of Israel, told me
7. to say to Zedekiah, “The Egyptian army is on its way to help you, but it will return home.
8. Then the Babylonians will come back, attack the city, capture it, and burn it down.
9. I, the Lord, warn you not to deceive yourselves into thinking that the Babylonians will not come back, because they will.
10. Even if you defeat the whole Babylonian army, so that only wounded men are left, lying in their tents, those men would still get up and burn this city to the ground.”
11. The Babylonian army retreated from Jerusalem because the Egyptian army was approaching.
12. So I started to leave Jerusalem and go to the territory of Benjamin to take possession of my share of the family property.
13. But when I reached the Benjamin Gate, the officer in charge of the soldiers on duty there, a man by the name of Irijah, the son of Shelemiah and grandson of Hananiah, stopped me and said, “You are deserting to the Babylonians!”