12. Then I repeated this same message to King Zedekiah of Judah. “If you want to live, submit to the yoke of the king of Babylon and his people.
13. Why do you insist on dying—you and your people? Why should you choose war, famine, and disease, which the lord will bring against every nation that refuses to submit to Babylon’s king?
14. Do not listen to the false prophets who keep telling you, ‘The king of Babylon will not conquer you.’ They are liars.
15. This is what the lord says: ‘I have not sent these prophets! They are telling you lies in my name, so I will drive you from this land. You will all die—you and all these prophets, too.’”
16. Then I spoke to the priests and the people and said, “This is what the lord says: ‘Do not listen to your prophets who claim that soon the gold articles taken from my Temple will be returned from Babylon. It is all a lie!
17. Do not listen to them. Surrender to the king of Babylon, and you will live. Why should this whole city be destroyed?
18. If they really are prophets and speak the lord’s messages, let them pray to the lord of Heaven’s Armies. Let them pray that the articles remaining in the lord’s Temple and in the king’s palace and in the palaces of Jerusalem will not be carried away to Babylon!’
19. “For the lord of Heaven’s Armies has spoken about the pillars in front of the Temple, the great bronze basin called the Sea, the water carts, and all the other ceremonial articles.
20. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon left them here when he exiled Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, to Babylon, along with all the other nobles of Judah and Jerusalem.
21. Yes, this is what the lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says about the precious things still in the Temple, in the palace of Judah’s king, and in Jerusalem:
22. ‘They will all be carried away to Babylon and will stay there until I send for them,’ says the lord. ‘Then I will bring them back to Jerusalem again.’”