9. In Jeremiah’s case did the princely judges yield to religious pressure, and how did they want to avoid calamity?

⁹ Among the princes who worked for the deliverance of Jeremiah from the death sentence was Ahikam the son of Shaphan. The princes did not yield to the religious pressure. They recognized Jeremiah as really being Jehovah’s mouthpiece. They did not want Jehovah to charge them with the innocent blood of his faithful servant. They decided in favor of Jeremiah: not guilty! His defense put them in the mood to recall historical examples. For instance, they were nearly 100 years closer to what Micah had prophesied against Judah and Jerusalem. King Hezekiah kept himself from bloodguilt by not having Micah put to death for supposedly seditious language, harmful to the State. “So,” said the elders in arguing for cautious handling of Jeremiah’s case, “we are working up a great calamity against our souls.”​—Jer. 26:16-19, 24; Mic. 3:9-12.

11. What calamity did Jehoiakim thus procure for himself?

¹¹ Jehoiakim did procure calamity for himself. In his eighth year of rule, King Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and made Jehoiakim a vassal king to the new world power of Babylon. Three years later Jehoiakim met an apparently untimely death. His corpse was pitched outside Jerusalem’s wall to have the “burial of a he-ass.” It was just as Jeremiah had prophesied. (Jer. 22:18, 19; 2 Chron. 36:5-8; 2 Ki. 24:1-6) How terrible!