Reenslaving Manumitted Slaves

⁸The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim a release among them— ⁹that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, both male and female, and that no one should keep his fellow Judean enslaved.

¹⁰Everyone, officials and people, who had entered into the covenant agreed to set their male and female slaves free and not keep them enslaved any longer; they complied and let them go. ¹¹But afterward they turned about and brought back the men and women they had set free, and forced them into slavery again. ¹²Then it was that the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

¹³Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage, saying: ¹⁴“In the seventh year^a each of you must let go any fellow Hebrew ^b-who may be sold^-bto you; when he has served you six years, you must set him free.” But your fathers would not obey Me or give ear. ¹⁵Lately you turned about and did what is proper in My sight, and each of you proclaimed a release to his countrymen; and you made a covenant accordingly before Me in the House which bears My name. ¹⁶But now you have turned back and have profaned My name; each of you has brought back the men and women whom you had given their freedom, and forced them to be your slaves again.

¹⁷Assuredly, thus said the Lord: You would not obey Me and proclaim a release, each to his kinsman and countryman. Lo! I proclaim your release—declares the Lord—to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine; and I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸I will make the men who violated My covenant, who did not fulfill the terms of the covenant which they made before Me, [like] the calf which they cut in two so as to pass between the halves: ¹⁹The officers of Judah and Jerusalem, the officials, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the halves of the calf ²⁰shall be handed over to their enemies, to those who seek to kill them. Their carcasses shall become food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. ²¹I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah and his officers to their enemies, who seek to kill them—to the army of the king of Babylon which has withdrawn from you. ²²I hereby give the command—declares the Lord—by which I will bring them back against this city. They shall attack it and capture it, and burn it down. I will make the towns of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.