Jeremiah warned them they would be punished for not freeing their slaves

8 King Zedekiah had decreed that the people must free their slaves. 9 He decreed that the people must free their Hebrew slaves, both the men slaves and the women slaves. No one would be allowed to force a fellow Jew to continue to be his slave. 10 The officials and the rest of the people had obeyed what the king decreed, 11 but later they changed their minds. They forced the men and women whom they had freed to become their slaves again.

12 So Yahweh gave me this message to tell to them: 13 “I, Yahweh, the God whom you Israelis say you belong to, ◄made an agreement with/gave this command to► your ancestors long ago, when I rescued them from being slaves in Egypt. 14 I told them that they must free all their Hebrew slaves after the slaves had worked for them for six years. But your ancestors did not pay any attention to what I said. 15 Recently, you obeyed my command and stopped doing what was wrong and did what was right. You made a solemn agreement at my temple that you would free your slaves, and then you freed them. 16 But now you have disregarded what you solemnly promised, and you have shown contempt for what I [MTY] said by taking back the women and men whom you had freed and said they could live wherever they wanted to. Now you have forced them to be your slaves again.

17 Therefore, this is what I, Yahweh, say: ‘Because you have not obeyed me by freeing your fellow Israelis, I will free you to be destroyed by the swords of your enemies and by famines and diseases. All the nations of the earth will be horrified because of what happens to you. 18-19 18-19Because you have disregarded what I said in my agreement with you, I will do to you just like you did to the calves that you cut in half to show that you would surely do what you solemnly promised that you would do. I will enable your enemies to cut you into pieces, you officials of Judah and you officials of Jerusalem, and you officials in the palace, and you priests and all you common people. I will do that because you have disregarded what you solemnly promised about freeing your slaves. 20 I will enable your enemies to capture you, and they will kill you. And your bodies will be food for vultures and wild animals.

21 I will enable the army of the king of Babylon to capture King Zedekiah and his officials. Although the king of Babylon and his army have left Jerusalem for a short time, 22 I will summon them back again. This time, they will fight against this city and capture it and burn it down. I will make sure that all the towns in Judah are destroyed, with the result that no one will live there any more.’ ”