16. But then you again profaned my name by taking back your male and female slaves whom you had just set free for life; you forced them to become your slaves again.
17. Therefore, thus says the Lord: You for your part did not obey me by proclaiming freedom for your families and neighbors. So I now proclaim freedom for you—oracle of the Lord—for the sword, starvation, and disease. I will make you an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
18. Those who violated my covenant and did not observe the terms of the covenant they made in my presence—I will make them like the calf which they cut in two so they could pass between its parts—
19. the princes of Judah and of Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests, and all the people of the land, who passed between the parts of the calf.
20. These I will hand over to their enemies, to those who seek their lives: their corpses shall become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.
21. Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his princes, I will hand also over to their enemies, to those who seek their lives, to the army of the king of Babylon which is now withdrawing from you.
22. I am giving the command—oracle of the Lord—to bring them back to this city. They shall attack and capture it, and burn it with fire; the cities of Judah I will turn into a waste, where no one dwells.