20. But Jeremiah said, “They will not deliver you. Please obey the voice of the Lord which I speak to you, so it will be well with you and your soul will live.
21. But if you refuse to surrender, this is the word that the Lord has shown me:
22. Then all the women who are left in the house of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officers of the king of Babylon; and those women shall say:‘Your friends have misled and prevailed against you;while your feet were sunk in the mud,they turned back.’
23. “So they will bring out all your wives and your children to the Chaldeans. And you will not escape out of their hand, but will be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon; and you will cause this city to be burned with fire.”
24. Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no man know of these words, and you will not die.
25. But if the officials hear that I have talked with you and they come to you and say to you, ‘Declare to us now what you said to the king and what the king said to you; do not hide it from us and we will not put you to death,’
26. then you will say to them, ‘I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan, to die there.’ ”
27. Then all the officials came to Jeremiah and asked him. And he told them according to all these words that the king had commanded; so they stopped speaking with him, for the matter was not overheard.