15. And you turned back recently and you did right in my eyes, to proclaim release each one to his neighbor, and you made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name.
16. But you turned back and you profaned my name when you brought back each one his male slave and each one his female slave, whom you had let go free according to their desire, and you subdued them to be to you as male slaves and as female slaves.’
17. “Therefore thus says Yahweh, ‘You have not listened to me to proclaim release each one to his fellow countryman and each one to his neighbor. Look, I am going to proclaim to you a release,’ declares Yahweh, ‘to the sword, to the plague, and to the famine, and I will make you a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
18. And I will make the men who transgressed my covenant, who have not kept the words of the covenant that they made before me, like the calf which they cut in two and they passed between its parts—
19. the officials of Judah, and the officials of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf—
20. and I will give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of the seekers of their lives, and their dead bodies will become as food for the birds of the heavens and for the animals of the earth.
21. And Zedekiah the king of Judah and his officials I will give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of the seekers of their lives, and into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, who retreated from you.
22. Look, I am going to command,’ declares Yahweh, ‘and I will bring them back to this city, and they will fight against it, and they will capture it, and they will burn it with fire, and the towns of Judah I will make a desolation without an inhabitant.’ ”