So he deported Jehoiachin to Babylon, along with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials and the notables of the land—he deported all as captives from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Rebuke the beast of the reeds, the herd of bulls with the calves, peoples trampling down pieces of silver. He has scattered the peoples who delight in war!
Do not let a son of a foreigner who has joined himself to Adonai say, ‘Adonai will surely exclude me from His people.” Nor let the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.’”
Then said the princes and all the people to the kohanim and to the prophets: “No death sentence for this man! For he has spoken to us in the Name of Adonai our God.”
(after Jeconiah the king, the queen-mother, the officers, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen and the smiths, had to leave Jerusalem). The letter was sent
—the princes of Judah and the princes of Jerusalem, the officers, the kohanim, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf—
But when he was at the Benjamin Gate, a captain of the guard was there, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah son of Hananiah, who arrested the prophet Jeremiah, saying: “You are deserting to the Chaldeans!”
The whole land, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem, will become like the Arabah. Jerusalem will be raised up and occupy her place, from the Benjamin Gate to the place of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses.
When one flees to one of those cities, he must stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and state his case in the hearing of the elders of that city. Then they are to take him into their city and give him a place to live among them.