Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel,.... Who, though the covenant God of Israel, yet provoked by their sins, sends the following message to their king:
go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him: alone; and tell it to no other but him, at least at present; the message being more peculiar to him, and must, had it been told to the people, been very disheartening to them:
behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon,
and he shall burn it with fire; see Jeremiah 32:3; which was exactly accomplished, Jeremiah 52:13.