6. Jeremiah the prophet told all these things to Zedekiah, king of Judah, in Jerusalem,
7. while the army of the king of Babylon was attacking Jerusalem and the remaining cities of Judah, Lachish, and Azekah. Only these fortified cities were left standing out of all the cities of Judah!
8. This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom:
9. Everyone must free their Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should hold another Judahite in servitude.
10. All the princes and the people who entered this covenant agreed to set free their slaves, their male and female servants, so that they should no longer be in servitude. But even though they agreed and freed them,
11. afterward they took back their male and female servants whom they had set free and again forced them into servitude.
12. Then this word of the Lord came to Jeremiah:
13. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I myself made a covenant with your ancestors the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery:
14. Every seventh year each of you must set free all Hebrews who have sold themselves to you; six years they shall serve you, but then you shall let them go free. Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or obey me.
15. As for you, today you repented and did what is right in my eyes by proclaiming freedom for your neighbor and making a covenant before me in the house which bears my name.
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.