Jeremiah 34:7-9

The Voice

⁷ This was when the Babylonian king’s siege of Jerusalem and the rest of Judah’s cities was under way, with Lachish and Azekah the only other fortified cities that had not been conquered.

⁸ Now as the siege continued and the conditions became more severe, another message came to Jeremiah from the Eternal after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with the citizens of Jerusalem to free the slaves in the city. ⁹ The king commanded all those who held Hebrew slaves to release them—both men and women—so that no Jew would hold a fellow Jew in slavery.