You must carefully obey at all times the rules, regulations, law, and commandments he wrote down for you. You must not worship other gods.

This is what the king says: ‘Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you, for he is not able to rescue you from my hand!

Gedaliah took an oath so as to give them and their troops some assurance of safety. He said, “You don’t need to be afraid to submit to the Babylonian officials. Settle down in the land and submit to the king of Babylon. Then things will go well for you.”

The king got up in the night and said to his advisers, “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know we are starving, so they left the camp and hid in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and enter the city.’”