8. A message came to me from the Lord. King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all of the people in Jerusalem. He had told them to set their Hebrew slaves free.
9. All of them had to do it. That applied to male and female slaves alike. No one was allowed to hold another Jew as a slave.
10. So all of the officials and people entered into that covenant. They agreed to set their male and female slaves free. They agreed not to hold them as slaves anymore. Instead, they set them free.
11. But later they changed their minds. They took back the people they had set free. They made them slaves again.
12. Then a message came to me from the Lord.