23 Then I added, “All your women and children will be taken out to the Babylonians, and you yourself will not escape from them. You will be taken prisoner by the king of Babylonia, and this city will be burned to the ground.”
24 Zedekiah replied, “Don't let anyone know about this conversation, and your life will not be in danger.
25 If the officials hear that I have talked with you, they will come and ask you what we said. They will promise not to put you to death if you tell them everything.
26 Just tell them you were begging me not to send you back to prison to die there.”
27 Then all the officials came and questioned me, and I told them exactly what the king had told me to say. There was nothing else they could do, because no one had overheard the conversation.
28 And I was kept in the palace courtyard until the day Jerusalem was captured.