23. “All your wives and children will be brought out. They will be given to the Babylonian army. You yourself will not even escape from them. You will be taken prisoner by the king of Babylon. And Jerusalem will be burned down.”
24. Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Do not tell anyone that I have been talking to you. If you do, you will die.
25. Those officers might find out that I talked to you. Then they will come to you and say, ‘Tell us what you said to King Zedekiah. And tell us what King Zedekiah said to you. Don’t keep any secrets from us. If you don’t tell us everything, we will kill you.’
26. If they ask you, tell them this: ‘I was begging the king not to send me back to Jonathan’s house to die.’”
27. The officers did come to question Jeremiah. So he told them everything the king had ordered him to say. Then the officers said no more to Jeremiah. This was because no one had heard what Jeremiah and the king had discussed.
28. So Jeremiah stayed under guard in the courtyard until the day Jerusalem was captured.