[:en]SCRIPTURE: JEREMIAH 34
“Everyone was to free his Hebrew slave,s both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Jew in bonday” (v. 9)
“Therefore, this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom for your fellow countrymen. so I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the Lord – ‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plaude and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth. The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces” (Jeremiah 34:17-18)
WARNINGS TO ZEDEKIAH
Jeremiah warned king Zedekiah to submit to King of Babylon but he refused to obey. So, he was captured, bounded, blinded and taken to Babylon.
FREEDOM FOR SLAVES
Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves, both male and female. They agreed and set the time but later, when the Babylonian army retreated because of the Egyptian army, they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed to enslave them again.
Therefore, the Lord proclaim to those who disobeyed freedom to the slaves to fall by the sword, plague and famine. Those who violated the covenant will be handed over to their enemies and their bodies will become food for the birds in the air and the beast of the earth.[:]