God rejected King Zedekiah’s request

21 Yahweh gave me another message when King Zedekiah of Judah sent a man who was also named Pashhur, the son of Malkijah, and a priest named Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah, to talk to me. They pleaded with me, saying, 2 “The army of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is attacking Judah. Please speak to Yahweh for us. Ask him if he will help us. Perhaps he will force Nebuchadnezzar’s army to leave by performing a miracle for us, like the miracles he performed previously.”

3 I replied to them, “Go back to King Zedekiah. Tell him, 4 ‘This is what Yahweh, the God whom we Israelis worship, says: “I will cause your weapons to be useless in fighting against the king of Babylon and his army that is outside the walls of Jerusalem, attacking. I will enable them to enter into the center of this city. 5 I myself will fight against your army with my very great power, [MTY, DOU] because I am very angry with you. 6 I will send a very ◄terrible plague/big sickness► on the people of this city, and on their domestic animals, and many of them will die.” 7 And Yahweh says there are many people in this city who want to kill you. So, he will enable the army of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and other people in this city to capture you, King Zedekiah, and your officials, and all the other people who do not die from the plague. His army will slaughter your soldiers; they will not act mercifully toward you(pl) or pity you at all. [DOU]’

8 And tell this to all the people: ‘Yahweh says that you must decide whether you want to die or to remain alive. 9 Everyone who remains in Jerusalem will die. They will be killed in battles or die from being hungry or from diseases. But those who surrender to the army of Babylon that is surrounding your city will remain alive. They will escape dying. 10 That will happen because I, Yahweh, have decided to cause this city to experience disasters, not to experience something good. The army of the king of Babylon will capture this city and will destroy it completely by fire.’ ”