14 One day King Tsidkiyah (Zedekiah) summoned the prophet Yirmiyah (Jeremiah) to meet him at the third entrance to the temple and told him, “I want to ask you something. Don’t refuse to answer honestly and truthfully.”
15 “Ha, if I tell you the truth, you’ll order me to be executed,” Yirmiyah replied. “And if I give you good advice, you won’t take any notice of what I say.”
16 But King Tsidkiyah privately promised Yirmiyah, “As our creator Yahweh lives, I won’t execute you or hand you over to those men who want to see you dead.”
17 “Okay,” Yirmiyah answered the king, “Yisrael’s (Israel’s) god, Commander-in-chief Yahweh says this: If you indeed go out to the Babylonian king’s officials, then you’ll live, and this city won’t be burnt down. You and your family would live. 18 But if you don’t go out to his officials, then this city will be handed over to the Babylonians. They’ll burn it down, and you wouldn’t be able to escape from their power.”
19 “But I’m afraid of the Yehudim (Jews) who’ve already deserted to the Babylonians,” the king confided to Yirmiyah. “You see, I might be handed over to them and they might treat me cruelly.”
20 “The Babylonians won’t hand you over to those Yehudim,” Yirmiyah responded. “Obey Yahweh’s message from Yahweh that I’m passing on to you, so that things will go well for you, and so that you’ll live through this. 21 However, if you refuse to surrender, then this is what Yahweh has shown me: 22 Listen king of Yehudah (Judah), all the women who are left in your palace will be taken out to the Babylonian king’s commanders. Those women will tell you,
‘You were deceived by your friends—they’ve ruined you.
Now your feet are stuck in the mud, and your friends have turned away.’
23 Yes, all your wives and children will be taken out to the Babylonians and you yourself won’t escape from them either. You’ll be taken captive by the Babylonian king, and this city will be burnt down.”
24 Then Tsidkiyah (Zedekiah) told Yirmiyah, “Don’t tell anyone else what we spoke about or you might die. 25 If the officials hear that I’ve have talked with you, and if they come and demand, ‘Tell us what you said to the king—don’t hide it from us or we’ll kill you,’ 26 then you must tell them, ‘I was just pleading to the king not to return me to the dungeon in Yonatan’s (Jonathan’s) house or I’d die there.’ 27 Then sure enough the officials came to Yirmiyah and questioned him and he answered them as the king had instructed him. They couldn’t say anything else because they hadn’t heard the conversation, 28 so Yirmiyah remained in the guards’ courtyard until the day that Yerushalem (Jerusalem) was captured.[ref]
