Jeremiah 34:15-18
34:15 Recently, however, you yourselves
showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own.
34:16 But then you turned right around
and showed that you did not honor me.
Each of you took back your male and female slaves whom you had freed as they desired, and you forced them to be your slaves again.
34:17 So I, the
Lord, say: “You have not really obeyed me and granted freedom to your neighbor and fellow countryman.
Therefore, I will grant you freedom, the freedom
to die in war, or by starvation or disease. I, the
Lord, affirm it!
I will make all the kingdoms of the earth horrified at what happens to you.
34:18 I will punish those people who have violated their covenant with me. I will make them like the calf they cut in two and passed between its pieces.
I will do so because they did not keep the terms of the covenant they made in my presence.
Exodus 5:2
5:2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the
Lord that
I should obey him
by releasing
Israel? I do not know the
Lord,
and I will not release Israel!”
Exodus 8:2
8:2 But if you refuse to release them, then I am going to plague
all your territory with frogs.
Exodus 9:2-3
9:2 For if you refuse to release them
and continue holding them,
9:3 then the hand of the
Lord will surely bring
a very terrible plague
on your livestock in the field, on the horses, the donkeys, the camels,
the herds, and the flocks.
Exodus 9:17-18
9:17 You are still exalting
yourself against my people by
not releasing them.
9:18 I am going to cause very severe hail to rain down
about this time tomorrow, such hail as has never occurred
in Egypt from the day it was founded
until now.
Isaiah 14:17
14:17 Is this the one who made the world like a desert,
who ruined its cities,
and refused to free his prisoners so they could return home?”’
Isaiah 58:6
58:6 No, this is the kind of fast I want.
I want you to remove the sinful chains,
to tear away the ropes of the burdensome yoke,
to set free the oppressed,
and to break every burdensome yoke.