kingdoms
of the earth.... 21. And Sedekiah, king of Judah, and his princes
will I give into the hands of their foes, the king of Babylon's
host that are gone up from you. 22. Behold, I am about to
command--Rede of the Lord--and bring them back to this city and they
shall storm and take it and burn it with fire, and the townships
of Judah will I make desolate and tenantless.

Are we not in danger of the guilt of a similar perjury to the men who
fought for us in the Great War, and for whom we have not yet fulfilled all
the promises made to them by our governors?

About this time the ill-treatment of Jeremiah, which had ceased on
Sedekiah's accession, was resumed. The narrative, or succession of
narratives, of this begins at XXXVII. 11, and continues to XXXIX. 14, with
interruptions in XXXIX. 1, 2, 4-13. Save for a few expansions, the whole
must have been taken from Baruch's memoirs. Except for the omission of
XXXIX. 4-13, the differences of the Greek from the Hebrew are unimportant,
consisting in the usual absence of repetitions of titles, epithets and
names.

The siege being raised, Jeremiah was going out by the North gate of the
city to Anathoth to claim or to manage(585) some property there, when he
was arrested by the captain of the watch, and charged with deserting. He
denied this, but was taken to the princes, who flogged him and flung him
into a vault in the house of Jonathan, the Secretary. After many days he
was sent for by the king who asked, _Is there Word from the Lord?_ _There
is_, he replied, and, as if drumming a lesson into a stupid child's head,
repeated his message, _Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the King
of Babylon_. He asked what he had done to be treated as he had been, and,
by contrast, where were the prophets who had said that the Babylonians
would not come to Judah--his irony was not yet starved out of him!--and
begged not to be sent back to the vault. The king committed him to the
Court of the Guard, where at least he was above ground, could receive
visitors, and was granted daily a loaf from the Bakers' Bazaar while bread
lasted in the city.(586)

Yet through his bars he still defied his foes and they were at him again,
quoting to the king two Oracles which he had uttered before and apparently
was repeating to those who resorted to him in the Guard-Court.

XXXVIII. 1. And Shephatiah, Mattan's son, Gedaliah Pashhur's son,
Jucal Shelamiah's son, a