¹Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made Zedekiah son of Josiah the king of Judah, and he reigned in place of Coniah son of Jehoiakim. ²But he and his officers and the people of the land refused to obey the words that the LORD had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet. ³Yet King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet with the message, “Please pray to the LORD our God for us!” ⁴Now Jeremiah was free to come and go among the people, for they had not yet put him in prison. ⁵Pharaoh’s army had left Egypt, and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report, they withdrew from Jerusalem. ⁶Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet: ⁷“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says that you are to tell the king of Judah, who sent you to Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to help you, will go back to its own land of Egypt. ⁸Then the Chaldeans will return and fight against this city. They will capture it and burn it down. ⁹This is what the LORD says: Do not deceive yourselves by saying, ‘The Chaldeans will go away for good,’ for they will not! ¹⁰Indeed, if you were to strike down the entire army of the Chaldeans that is fighting against you, and only wounded men remained in their tents, they would still get up and burn this city down.”